


The Gentlest Schism

by SandwichesYumYum



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Book Spoilers, F/M, Post-Canon, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-09-05
Packaged: 2018-01-12 12:35:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 175,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1186263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandwichesYumYum/pseuds/SandwichesYumYum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>REPOST. Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth. The war is over. Some of them hadn’t thought that they would outlive it. And yet...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in July 2013.
> 
> A Note For Unspoiled Show Viewers (July 2013): there are facets of this story that are drawn from the  
> later books, so if you want to remain entirely unspoiled, please look away now! Though  
> please take with you my heartiest congratulations for being so unspoiled...you have a great  
> deal of awesomeness to look forward to. Yay! :)
> 
> Additional note (February 2014): I am sorry for any inconvenience or upset my temporary removal of this fic has caused. Please believe me when I say it was needful. All of your comments have been saved and will be added in notes after the epilogue, unless you would wish yours to be omitted. I think it important that you know your words have helped me. I thank you all for them. I send extra love to B, Miss_M, and especially my dear beta RoseHeart, who have all played crucial roles in the development of this little thing. Biscuits for all.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own it not.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   
>  Banner by [Ro Nordmann](http://ro-little-shop-of-wonders.tumblr.com)

PROLOGUE - THE REUNION

 

Tyrion and his cohort of distinctly capable looking eastern warriors had intercepted them, a half a day’s ride from King’s Landing.

The meeting with their straggly column of war-worn soldiers had really been rather humbling, all told.

For so very many reasons, but mostly because Jaime was in chains, once more.

He was dragged from his place with his companions for this reunion. His little brother was cool and courteous to him, no doubt because this impromptu choice of escort duty may endanger his new position as an advisor to the Dragon Queen. Yet even the consummate survivor of the family could not hide the concern that flickered over his features as he took in the parlous state of his brother, the dreaded Kingslayer. Could not stop his lip twisting in silent rage and pity as he again took in the absence of his sword hand. Of his identity.

He ordered a horse be brought forward for his exhausted older sibling to ride, starting in surprise when Jaime quietly asked for the beast to be offered to the Lady Brienne of Tarth. “You know, the ridiculously tall one,” he added, nodding in the direction of a familiar and lofty shock of untidy blond hair, suddenly evident even to Tyrion, further down the group.

As another horse was being prepared, Tyrion watched with open curiosity as the renowned Maid of Tarth walked towards them, at his brother’s calling. Also in chains. All of the group with Jaime had been ordered arrested, but there was no hint of brokenness in the immense woman that strode purposefully from the small collection of guarded prisoners. Her once grudging travelling companion noted an internal surge of pride at this, but ignored it.

Jaime saw his brother’s eyes widen as the obvious, and extensive, fresh scarring borne by Brienne became clear. He said nothing of this though, merely asking them to mount their horses so that they could be on their way.

There was silence as they set off, but after only a short time Tyrion halted the party, asking most of them to remain in place whilst he and Jaime, with a small (and somewhat fearsome) escort, made a brief diversion.

As they rode their way along the boundary of an adjoining field, Jaime could hold his silence no longer. “This is curious, brother mine. I am sure that I am your prisoner. Am I to end up in a ditch, hereabouts?” His dry tone made Tyrion smile a little.

“Yes, brother mine, you are my prisoner. But don’t worry, you won’t be inspecting any ditches today. I simply thought that, before the upcoming mummer’s show that could well be your return to the capital, you would like to see our dearest sister.”

Jaime’s head spun, with fiercely conflicting and overwhelming emotions. “Oh.”

“Yes. _Oh._ ” Tyrion chuckled. “Our time here will be short, Jaime. Shall we move along?”

Jaime, still unable to speak, just nodded sharply and encouraged his mount to move with a little more speed.


	2. The Sister

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The war is over. Some of them hadn’t thought that they would outlive it. And yet...
> 
>   
> Banner by [Ro Nordmann](http://ro-little-shop-of-wonders.tumblr.com)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I own it not.

CHAPTER ONE: THE SISTER

 

And so, it has come to this.

She is, once more, waiting for the dubious ‘honour’ of a visit from a man.

It is always a man, that she is forced to wait for. That all women must wait for.

A man.

Or barely a man, in this case.

A shell.

The shell of the man she had once loved, so fiercely.

The merest shade of her Golden Knight.

Her brother. The other half of her.

The father of her beloved children, of whom only one survives, a maimed, cursed daughter, being kept from her, far away in Dorne.

The man who abandoned her to humiliation and ruin in the place they had once been so close to ruling.

She can hear them in the hallway. Him. And the Imp. The kinslayer. A prophecy, whispered many years ago, made flesh. Here. Here, to taunt her. They have told her that the dwarf has been exonerated, but she knows what she saw. She is sure that the stunted monster she once called ‘brother’ is not as innocent as everyone chooses to claim.

She knows him. He killed their mother. She does not doubt, for a moment, that he also killed her son. Her beloved Joffrey.

She still carries the warm memories of her oldest son’s early childhood with her, during every waking moment. Even now.

It is too soon to think of the fate of little, kind Tommen. Dearest Tommen, who loved nothing more than just using his seal on the molten wax of letters he had not even written. And she refuses to truly admit what Joffrey became. She cannot bear it. It is all too painful. Those floodgates must remain firmly shut, for now.

The door opens. And there he is. Jaime.

Jaime.

The one that has been closest to her, in her whole life, and the one that now looks farthest away.

He steps into her space, closing the door quietly and nodding to the aged Septa sitting in the corner of the room.

There is always a Septa now. A condition of her still breathing, as she likes to call it.

He is changed, again. And not for the better.

Her initial reaction is to shy away from the physical sight of him; the dirt, the scarring, the aging, the nauseatingly missing hand.

She is half convinced that these are enough to reject him entirely. Yet she cannot.

Not entirely. He looks appalling, yes, but she can still see the remains of her former saviour. She glances at the Septa, and nods as well. Now they will both speak. Though perhaps not freely.

“Cersei...” His voice is rough, clearly travel weary, and it trails off, as if there is nothing to say. He raises his chained arms and all she can see is his ghastly stump, waving at her, as if pleading for understanding. She cannot bear it.

“What, Jaime?” she snaps.

He huffs, though whether or not it is in amusement is hard to say. “I have been brought here to say goodbye. I am on my way back to be a morning of brutal entertainment for the folk of King’s Landing, I think. I’m about _done_.”

Her gaze is level, measuring. She is seated, and he stands, but he is tamed by her eyes. As he ever was.

She will not make this easy for him. “What charms of the North kept you from me, Jaime? When I needed you? When I begged for your help? Did you find that you had a sudden liking for snow? Or were you busy falling into that enormous bitch with a sword that you had taken a fancy to? Could you not find your way out of her?”

His eyes become almost flinty. She has never seen these eyes become so chilling, before. His answer is quiet, but cutting. “Never speak of her in that way.”

“So. There is life in you, yet,” she bites. She feels compelled to. “Just not enough for me.”

He bites back, hard and cruel. His tone is harsh, so harsh. “Do not assume that all women need to use their cunts to win admiration, sister.”

He knows he has spoken wrongly, the moment he utters it. His eyes slam shut and shakes his head fiercely. He breathes in deeply before he even seems able to look at her again. “I am sorry, Cersei. That was...unkind.”

She notes, with a sharp recognition of the fact, that he does not say 'untrue'. She glares at him, her nostrils flaring. “Not that sorry, I think.”

He shrugs. “I will be dead soon. I don’t think I have the strength to dredge up the amount of apologies that you probably need, in the time I have left.”

“Or the will?” she asks, with a bitter smile.

He pauses, but then looks down at his hideous stump, so oddly. He almost seems to really smile. “Perhaps.”

They stand apart, the physical distance amplified many times over by the sheer differences in their current circumstances.

He takes one, sure, step forward. “I will always love you, Cersei.” He looks so tired, but his voice becomes suddenly much more firm, every syllable enunciated with the coldest of precision. “After all, you are my sister.”

These are the worst words that he can ever have chosen to say to her. She feels a permanent barrier slam down in her mind. He was everything. Now, she is not. She rocks forward visibly, but will not give him the small victory of seeing her weep in her now constant despair.

She barely notices as he attempts to square his shoulders. “I will make sure that Myrcella is safe. I swear it.”

She knows better. She is aware of where he is going, where he is headed. “I know, more than anybody, how much I can trust an oath from you.” She pauses. “Kingslayer,” she spits.

She can still hurt him, as well.

He seems, momentarily, as if he may crumple. This is not a word that she had ever spoken to him in malice. Has she heard it? Yes. So many times. But she has never used that word as a weapon.

This war has left them equally harmed. Damaged. Too broken for either of them to be able to bear the other. To make them live. They both know it.

Only she will not admit it. Or perhaps she is the first to do so.

She sighs.

“ _Go._ ”

He seems stunned. “What? Please, Cersei, listen. I will do this. I gave up everything for...”

She is driven to interrupt him, because he dares to speak to her of what he has given up. He _dares!_

“You are already a dead man. You can promise me nothing. Go!”

He looks broken. She feels it too. Indeed, she is no less broken. She turns her head away, in apparent disdain, but truly it is only so she can retain her composure. He will not see her cry. No man will see her cry.

Never more.

She hears what happens, in the minutes after he seems to stagger out of the room, as she does not see. She cannot feel true victory in it. So much has been lost.

Once the door closes, she glances with scorn, just momentarily, at the scandalised Septa in the corner, before pinning her gaze to the wooden surface of the door he had walked through.

Yes. So much has been lost.

She, most of all.

/-/-/-/-/

He nearly stumbles outside and falls to the floor, onto his knees. The door swings loudly shut behind him and this man, now so used to war, actually flinches at the sound. He turns slightly and cries into the shoulder of his little brother. That brother holds him, albeit that it is awkward. It doesn’t matter for how long. For either of them. There is so much that is now lost to them.

The sword-handless, Golden Knight of old, and recently of outlandish song, simply weeps.

His little brother just holds him.


	3. The Brother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The war is over. Some of them hadn’t thought that they would outlive it. And yet...
> 
>   
> Banner by [Ro Nordmann](http://ro-little-shop-of-wonders.tumblr.com)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I own it not.

CHAPTER TWO: THE BROTHER

 

Most of the return journey is made in silence. Tyrion spends the time quietly watching his brother as he collects himself.

Cersei was ever brutal. He knows this more than most.

But, from his own point of view, his kindest family member did not react to his meeting with their sister quite as badly as he had thought he would. It was a short visit, and the initial storm of tears had passed relatively sooner than he’d anticipated.

Within minutes Jaime had pulled himself together, his shoulders merely shaking slightly as he clambered to his feet, only to look down and ask if it was time to leave yet.

It was.

At his nod, his brother strode forward, disregarding him and everybody else, determined to mount a horse and be elsewhere. Soon.

Maybe this determination was a reflection of an ending. Though he cannot currently be sure. Tyrion desperately hopes this is true. It is what he wants.

His brother, freed. Even if he is not free.

There is a nascent plan for him. It was initially his idea, but he cannot yet tell Jaime. His service in the North has been near legendary. There are even songs about it, though some of them are not entirely complimentary. The state of affairs is delicate. Jaime is the Kingslayer, yes. He killed the father of the new Queen. But now he also the Tamer of the North, the man who led the charge that defeated the horrors of Winter.

The One-Handed Knight.

His stump was blistered, burned by the fire of the dragons that came to save them all. Until they were distracted by a giantess, from an island far away, in a blue sea. The Maid That Roared. She stood upon The Wall, or so the songs tell it, her call as loud as the shrieks of the dragons as they tried to grasp the strangeness of the cold, of the battle. Her voice and her sword had pointed the fearsome children of the Dragon Queen to their true foes.

Or so they say. And sing.

Yet Jaime had risen. He had fought on.

He was magnificent.

He had slain the very last of the cursed White Walkers.

And the living had won.

The evils from the North abated.

Spring finally arrived.

But he was still the end of Aerys Targaryen. The Kingslayer. Blood seen, dripping from a sword. But not any sword. The sword of a member of the Kingsguard. And not any blood. The blood of a king.

Politics is now coming into play, more than ever. Tyrion knows he has an innate gift with politics.

Even so, his plan is the only way for Jaime to live.

It is dependent on Danaerys. It is also dependent on others, including his older brother, himself. Tyrion wants it to work. He truly wants it to work, so desperately, but there are too many variables to make it a certain outcome. He may yet simply be escorting Jaime’s head back to a spike on the walls of King’s Landing. This thought makes him shiver. They have had a certain amount of bad history, yes, but he knows they are both aware that they grew up in the lion’s den, without necessarily having the inner brutality to bear it well.

His older brother, the Kingslayer, is ill-made to be a monster. The image of the arrogant and beautiful Golden Knight was only ever a facade. Tyrion knows this. Jaime’s loyalty to Cersei has been staggering over the years, despite the fact that her own was often questionable. He would have done anything for her. And he had proven it, in a dark act that even Tyrion has struggled with knowing. Yes. The throwing of the Stark boy from a tower was ghastly. So very wrong. But Tyrion does not think, for a second, that if he had had even a tenth of the love, the devotion, that Jaime had poured into her, that he might not have done the same. It was always about her. She was always their father’s daughter, even if Tywin couldn’t recognise the fact. They both were driven by a hunger for power.

In Jaime and in Tyrion, himself, it was always absent. They have only ever wished for comfort and happiness. He has always found it moderately amusing that the sons of the astoundingly powerful Tywin Lannister should lack for the latter at least, seeing that he had bought everything else.

Then there was this war.

Everything is changed.

Happiness is still a long way away.

He hopes that, one day, he’ll get to tell his brother the tale of his having jousted on a pig. It isn’t a story he’d freely share, but Jaime would laugh and understand it, in equal measure. In the very best way. The way of a kindly older brother.

Yet there is one matter that he must clear up, before the madness which is yet to come. He reins in his horse and Jaime follows suit.

His older sibling, slightly ahead of him now, turns back with a curious look, but says nothing, an eyebrow raised in question. Tyrion takes a deep breath.

“Jaime. I do not kill children. I never have.”

His brother’s shoulders fall in response, but it is not a negative motion. It is a reaction to a weight lifted off, the reaction to a blatant untruth, confirmed.

His reply is weary. “I had hoped that you were just angry with me.”

“I was.” He pauses. “Tysha.”

Jaime grimaces. His tone is more tired than angry. “I couldn’t be sure, though. It was still a cruel lie, Tyrion.”

He speaks as honestly as he ever has. Perhaps, more so. “Yes. It was. And I am very sorry I ever said it.”

Jaime nods, and turns away. “We should get back, yes?”

A cold answer, perhaps, but Tyrion can see that his apology is appreciated. “There is not far to go, now.”

His brother kicks his horse forward and laughs at this, at length and with no lack of black humour, but then tops a rise, close to their meeting place with the odd group they’d formed earlier. The laughter stops, suddenly.

Tyrion looks towards their travelling companions. “Oh.”

Something strange has happened. Most of the Dothraki contingent of Tyrion’s original escort are grouped around the big woman.

There is a peculiar air to it, though. Tyrion observes them. Strangely, there is no aggression. They are merely looking at her, he thinks. She appears to be looking straight back at them, dignified but fearless.

Jaime doesn’t see it. He goes to make his horse move more swiftly; his concern writ large on his features, but Tyrion shakes his head, waving out to catch his attention. “There is no need to worry, brother. If they had wanted to harm her, they would have done so by now.”

A dark and unfamiliar smile flits across Jaime’s face. “They would have tried.”

Tyrion leans forward slightly. “So she is that good? Truly?” He knows he may sound too eager, but he _must_ know this. It is _important._

His brother’s answer is immediate and certain. “She is better. In every way.”

He can’t help himself if his mind immediately falls into a gutter. And if he smirks, knowingly. “Every way?”

Jaime looks at him, bleakly. “I would not allow Cersei to speak of her in that way. Nor will I allow you.”

This is new. Tyrion blinks. His ensures that his face falls blank, instantly, even though he does not understand. “I understand.”

The answer he gets is terse. “I do not think that you do.” It is odd. Jaime never used to be terse. Far from it. He does not suppose he could truly understand this man though. Not now.

And he knows that his brother knows this.

The Winter War has a lot to answer for.

They canter down towards the untidy column, in silence. As they do, they can see those unlucky enough to be walking wearily pulling themselves up to their feet, gathering their personal items together.

The two most prominent prisoners do not even have weaponry, but as Jaime arrives back at the group that is their originally enlarged party, Tyrion notes that the Maid of Tarth shifts her horse slightly forwards. That way, Jaime can move his horse through to her left.

They nod to each other, when he pulls up next to her. That is all. A brief nod. They aren’t even looking at each other, very much, but he is astounded.

Tyrion has never seen two people communicate so much information in the merest of glances.

His brother isn’t lacking his right hand quite as much as he’d thought.

He orders them all to move on. They must make King’s Landing before dark and it is now early afternoon.

Summer is coming, but it is not here yet.

As they trot along, he sees something quite extraordinary. He doesn’t know what transpired whilst he and Jaime were away, but he does know one thing.

His own guard have realised, already, that the Maid of Tarth is truly worthy.

He finds it curious, watching the Dothraki guardsmen, in particular, freely gather their horses alongside her as they travel, obviously respecting her lack of interest in her own flesh, openly regarding her as a true and fascinatingly unusual warrior. He has only ever spoken with her little. She is taciturn, but her goodness he cannot doubt. It seems, however, that this ingrained sense of honour and her general air of capability have shone through, winning her some surprisingly exotic admirers.

He looks slyly at Jaime. Though perhaps not as slyly as he’d hoped.

Jaime bites. “Stop it, Tyrion.”

He stops.

They continue to travel. The brothers reminisce, quietly, in the little time they have left. They speak of lemon cakes and the number of times Tyrion has had to be dragged out from under a bevy of whores to do official business and paddling in blue waters when they were young, when all that mattered was the prospect of rain. The older brother holds no anger for his brother keeping him captive. The younger sorely wishes that he didn’t have to consider the issue.

They both try not to think of King’s Landing.


	4. The Maid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The war is over. Some of them hadn’t thought that they would outlive it. And yet...
> 
>   
> Banner by [Ro Nordmann](http://ro-little-shop-of-wonders.tumblr.com)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I own it not.

CHAPTER THREE: THE MAID

 

As they draw close to the city walls, Jaime smiles at her, tightly. “It would seem our travels will shortly be at an end, wench.” She can barely even swallow as the ever growing knot in her stomach seems to rise up to suffocate her. She just looks at him solemnly. “Yes.”

They clatter through the main gate of King’s Landing, far too swiftly, making their way through the streets almost unimpeded, until they are delayed by an ale cart, near the Red Keep.

A small gaggle of children runs out of a side alley ahead of them and starts to scamper down the street. They stop when one of the smallest, a girl Brienne thinks, points and shouts, “The Kingslayer and the Maid!” They gather and gape in awe.

Travel worn as they are, she does not suppose that she and Ser Jaime are anything but instantly recognisable, anymore. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Jaime lift his arms with some minor difficulty (he is, after all, restrained just above his elbows as well as more uselessly at the wrists) and send a cheery wave in their direction with his remaining hand.

An older boy leans down towards the smaller children, whispering animatedly. It soon becomes clear that he is telling them of the actions of the Goat, when he chops violently on his right wrist with his own left hand. The little ones shriek and cover their mouths, their eyes as wide as platters.

“I think I probably sounded like that at the time, too,” Jaime observes, dryly.

She gazes on him with fondness, refusing to be swamped by an upwelling of memories from that awful night. “You were unspeakably brave. I heard that in a song.”

He grins. “Of course I was. There are easier ways to get a song though. I hear you can throw a goat and they’ll write a ditty about you.”

“It was a sheep. As well you know, Ser Jaime.” Their column begins to move again. “And ‘The Maid That Roared’ is a dreadful song. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that you wrote...”

She tails off as the Red Keep looms into view at the end of the road, her mind gone blank. She looks at her friend. His face is wan and pale as he looks back at her, his eyes grim.

They can say nothing. This is the end.

She breaks from his unbearably painful gaze, turning her head away only to find herself looking directly at the little girl. Tiny, bare feet pitter-patter in the mud as she runs, trying to keep up with their horses. She tries to smile at her, but cannot.

This is the end.

Brienne does not know it, but that little girl, when she is old and grey, will remember the eyes of the Maid of Tarth as the most beautiful, and the most sad, that she has ever seen. Glassy with tears.

It feels as if only a few, broken moments pass before they are in the fortress itself and the guards are coming. Too soon, too soon.

This is the end.

Jaime looks to her, his voice quiet and clear in the surrounding din. “Goodbye, Lady Brienne.”

She wants to reply so very much, but she cannot. It is as if her own voice has slipped away.

He understands. Shades of Harrenhal.

Then the guards are there, he is wrestled from his horse, and is gone, with only a last, parting look from a darkened doorway.

She squares her shoulders, unwilling to appear as bereft as she feels, but finds herself inspecting the manure-smeared cobblestones of the yard. She is sure she only does so for a few seconds, but then Jaime’s brother steps into her line of sight, his eyes warm as he speaks. “Come, my Lady. I will remove those manacles. I do not think you need to wear them here. Then I will escort you to your chamber.”

It breaks the spell. She swings her legs off the horse, her feet connecting with the ground with a mighty thump.

“Thank you, Lord Tyrion.”

\\-\\-\\-\

For two days, she does not leave her room, seeing no one but the frightened maid who scurries in and out, to empty her chamber pot, or bring her food and water. She hears nothing of Jaime, or even of her own fate.

Part of her is frustrated with the inaction, at the lack of information, but another part is glad she is not yet trying to navigate her way through this viper’s nest.

She does not know if he is already dead. The thought consumes her.

Lonely hours drag by, with only memories and fear for company.

Then, in the late afternoon, she receives some clean and blessedly large, male clothing. With a note.

Her fingers fumble with the wax seal of House Lannister.

 

_'My Lady Brienne._

_He lives._

_The Queen has asked me to inform you that you are free to move about the unsecured inner sections of the castle, but not beyond. I shall hope to see you in the practice yards, soon. Some of the Dothraki keep on talking about you and my ears grow tired. Please feel free to hit as many of them as you need to._

_My apologies if the clothing I have provided is too large, or too small. You big folk all look the same, to me._

_With my warmest regards._

_Lord Tyrion Lannister.'_

 

Brienne stares at the note, transfixed on those two words, as her heart beats like a drum of battle.

He lives.

He lives.

Her head falls forward as waves of relief rip through her. She wallows in the tides of it, for a little while, until it gentles and feels like floating in the warm seas of Tarth.

_He lives._

She looks at the note once more and thinks she might like this Lord Lannister, even if he does have a quite terrible reputation. Then the word ‘soon’ catches her eye. Is Tyrion waiting for her?

She hopes so.

She nearly scrambles into some clean clothing and heads to the practice yards. It is late in the day, but they will not be empty yet.

They are not. She has not noticed the strange looks cast her way as she hurriedly makes her way there, and does not hear the silence that falls when she arrives. She is used to this. This is her arena, but one in which she will never truly be welcome.

She is about to be surprised.

A slightly older knight, not quite equal to her in height, but with the enormous shoulders of a smith, jogs over to her. “The Maid of Tarth!” his voice booms. “It is an honour, my Lady. I’m Ser Kyron Chartney. We have not met, but I saw you fight during the Battle of the Wall. You were extraordinary!”

Brienne examines his face for signs of pity or scorn. She finds none. He is open and friendly. She is further perplexed when she notes that the few remaining knights and squires in the yard have stopped training and are looking at her with simple curiosity. “Thank you, Ser,” she answers softly, rather unable to work out the cause of this change.

There is familiar voice from across the yard. Lord Tyrion is happily sitting on a stool, holding a flagon of wine. “It would seem that your reputation as a warrior of great note has preceded you, my Lady. Will you be sparring, this afternoon?”

“I have no partner, my Lord. I had thought only to use the practice dummies.”

Ser Kyron breaks into a wide grin, his teeth shining bright through his enormous beard. “I would love to be able to tell my children that I have sparred with the Maid that Roared, my Lady.”

Brienne blushes, even if she does find the roaring business a little irksome. “Would you show me the armoury then, Ser?”

They busy themselves with assembling a hodge-podge of armour for her to wear, and soon enough find that they are facing one another, blunted swords drawn.

It is a long contest. It starts slowly, blades occasionally flashing out, only to be blocked by their opposite number, as they measure each other. There is none of the immediate and elegant dance that she is used to with another. She waits for Ser Kyron to make his move. She can be patient. It is a little while before the tempo picks up, with the burly knight leading the way and then it rapidly increases, becoming littered with resounding strikes of blade on blade.

This one is strong. There is some finesse here, but they both carry so much strength that it was always bound to descend into sheer brutality. The hits are taken and given in equal measure, ringing to the skies when they hit armour, making her blood sing. At one stage they even start grappling, the swords in their hands almost forgotten as they look eye to eye, their faces streaming with sweat.

Neither one can knock down the other. Where he is slightly stronger, with a sturdier frame, she has longer limbs, with better reach and leverage.

It goes on and in the end, she gets lucky. His sword hits her hand and her blade skitters away, but as he steps forward to press his advantage his foot just slips and he ends up flat on his back. She scrambles to retrieve her weapon, turning back to find him laughing uproariously.

“Oh, my Lady of Tarth!” he pants. “I think I have had enough for today. They said you were as strong as an aurochs! But I think I would swear that you are as strong as two!” She pulls him up to his feet, exhausted but happy.

He is truly a sparring partner of note. “It is little surprise to me that you survived the Wall, Ser Kyron. I am only surprised that the Wall survived you. I am grateful for your time. Thank you.”

He is still breathing deeply, catching his breath somewhat. “No, thank you, Lady Brienne. You are a delight!”

It is only now, as their focus emerges from the narrowness of sparring, that they notice a small crowd has gathered to watch them. The original squires and knights have been joined by some servants, two nobles and a handful of Eastern warriors. Ser Kyron takes a florid bow, to a smattering of applause and joyful laughter. Brienne can only manage to bring herself to nod her head, which is met with the same.

With one last nod to Tyrion, she and Ser Kyron go to remove their battered armour. The good knight makes her promise to be back at the practice yard in the morning.

She goes to sleep hearing the song of swordplay and thinking of just two words.

_He lives._

\\-\\-\\-\

The next day, many more people are watching.

A young Dothraki warrior steps forward a short time after she and Ser Kyron have struggled to another painful and joyously honourable draw.

He is holding two very new looking curved swords of the type the Dothraki use. She picks one and sees that is has been specially made as a blunter, practice weapon, just like the tourney swords ringing out around the yard.

She points at her chest, about to introduce herself, when he says, “Tarth.” His accent is pronounced, but understandable. He then points to himself, intoning, “Kholo.”

“Kholo,” she repeats carefully. He indicates she is correct and she points at the weapon. “Arakh,” he utters and she says it too.

She hefts this arakh, so alien to her. It is very light, with a vicious curve. She grimaces. She knows she is about to be thoroughly beaten.

She is, but it doesn’t matter. Kholo claims a clear victory, but not before she has knocked him down onto his knees at least twice. She is not sure, but she thinks that these men from the East fight mainly on horseback, because whilst their style is vastly more elegant, it is also full of flourishes that leave huge openings for the knight on foot.

After he pulls her back up to her feet, she carefully puts down her arakh and picks up two tourney swords, offering one to Kholo. He does not refuse.

This time she wins, and has only fallen to her knees once.

There is much cheery slapping of her shoulders and many strange cries of ‘Tarth! Tarth!’ from the Dothraki, as she leaves the practice yard.

She has not once looked up to balconies from which other people have been viewing this strange event, so she is unaware that she is being followed back to her rooms.

/-/-/-/

She is stripped bare, her hair wet and her body almost entirely scrubbed clean of well-earned sweat with the bowl of washing water the still terrified maid had left for her, when the door to her chamber is flung open and three people walk in. She turns towards them, clamping her arms around her in the necessary places, before she realises who is here.

A maidservant, carrying a roll of blue material. Lord Tyrion Lannister, who closes the door, only to turn around and look utterly bewildered. And the Queen. The Ruler of the Iron Throne! She moves to find something to cover herself, but Daenerys Targaryen holds up a hand to stop her.

They all look at one another, frozen, for a moment.

Brienne of Tarth can only stand there, awash in vast embarrassment and horror. She feels herself crushed by her own awkward body. She knows what she is. Her life has been a litany of insults.

And they are looking at her.

Tyrion is the first to react. He is clearly staggered by what he is seeing. By her ugliness. “My Lady,” he says, bowing and going to leave. He is forestalled by the diminutive Dragon Queen.

She is sharp with him.

“My Lord Lannister, you will remain. You shall witness this.”

He clearly struggles with the order, his face contorting with indecision, or maybe revulsion, as he turns back towards the room. Brienne looks down as he glances back at her. She does not wish to see his judgement of her form.

The tiny young woman steps forward, gently reaching up to touch Brienne’s defensively hunched shoulders, pushing them back. “I am your Queen now, my Lady. Your ruler. Your mother. Hold your shoulders straight, my child.” She lightly pulls on the arms clamped to her body until they fall away. “I see nothing here to shame you.” She reaches up to softly tip Brienne’s face upwards. “You are the Maid of Tarth. Hold your head high. Always. I have questions about your journey. The answers are writ large on your skin. I would have you help me read them.”

She is astonished and can do nothing but give silent assent. A mere blink of her eyes as she looks at the flawless face of the Dragon Queen, but a certain one.

She watches the platinum hair of Daenerys Targaryen disappear from her sight as she is inspected.

It is excruciating.

A glance to the corner of the room tells her that the servant of the East who came in with the Queen has her gaze fixed to the floor. She will not intrude.

She looks towards Tyrion, expecting to see nothing but disdain, yet his eyes are shining with concern for her. She is grateful for it. She realises that her arms are shaking and closes her eyes, to breathe deeply in the way of battle, to calm herself.

Yet as her eyes fall shut, she remembers the baths at Harrenhal.

How she had transformed from the cringing maid in the corner of the baths to the unabashed, unafraid woman who stood naked in the face of criticism. In front of him. In front of Jaime.

She can do this.

 _He lives_.

She takes one more deep breath and opens her eyes.

And the Queen is before her, again.

Brienne nods, surely.

Desperately slowly, a small hand is raised and a delicate finger traces the now pale mark circling her throat. “This?” she asks.

She knows what is being asked. It is simply so hard to say. She sees the legs of poor Ser Hyle Hunt, kicking. Of dearest Pod. “A noose. Lady Stoneheart.”

The finger moves to her right hip, dabbing onto a group of marks left there. “A wolf. The northern Kingsroad. Shortly before we reached the Wall.”

The Queen walks around her, again. She reaches up towards the left hand side of her neck. “A bear. Harrenhal.”

The Ruler of Westeros and much of Essos looks at her, quizzically. “I had thought that a fanciful tale.”

“No. The bear pit is true.”

The Mother of Dragons shifts her hand just above her skin, to the top of her right breast. “A dagger. The Brotherhood Without Banners.” She can’t bear to utter the word ‘Stoneheart’ again. Anyway, by the time the dirk was plunged down the front of her ill-fitted cuirass, Lady Stoneheart was dead, once more.

A shallow line from her right shoulder, to halfway down her back. “Ser Jaime. That one was an accident.” The Queen leans forward to look up at her, an eyebrow raised. “Truly. He stumbled over a tree root during a night scuffle in the Riverlands. He is carrying a couple of marks of mine, as well.” She is suitably matter of fact. “These things happen.”

The woman with the pale hair moves to stand in front of her. Solemnly she lifts her hand to cup Brienne’s ravaged cheek. She blinks and clenches her jaw, repeatedly. Never has one word been so hard to say.

“Biter.”

At Tyrion’s savagely indrawn breath, the Queen looks around at him, sharply. He speaks, his voice thick with horror. “A man. With pointed teeth. Trained to fight dogs to the death for sport.”

She turns her attention back to Brienne, who simply nods. When she expands on just the name, her tone is rough, guttural. “The Inn at the Crossroads.”

Those particularly Targaryen eyes become angry. “I hope he died in agony.”

A slight shake of her head. Another deep breath. Her answer, this time, is a whisper. “He died quickly. But he still died.” The little hand pats her cheek, approvingly, before it drops to her thigh.

There are only two relatively small, but deep marks there, a Dragon Queen’s hand span apart.

“An arrow. The Gates of the Moon.”

Daenerys looks up at her in wonder. Even the highest in the land are not immune to tale and song, it would seem. “When you shielded the Lady Stark with your own body?”

“Yes. That song is fairly accurate, at least.”

"I have seen enough." The Queen then speaks to the silent maid, with the breath-taking dark skin and now, Brienne can see, golden eyes, in the corner. “Missandei. The robe.” There is a flurry of movement and within moments, they have covered her in the softest robe she has ever worn, the Queen herself tying the matching blue belt around her waist. It is a blessed relief.

Daenerys looks up at her. “I have heard other songs. They say that you called my dragons from the top of the Wall. To save the Kingslayer.”

Brienne nearly snaps back, because she really hates that song. It is so far removed from the truth as to be ridiculous! “I did not! I only called Drogon, from about fifteen feet away, on the walls of Castle Black.”

“Oh?” Small teeth bite perfect lips, and she hopes it is in some measure of humour.

She rolls her eyes and huffs. She cannot help herself. “Yes. Your dragon had injured a group of sentries, and Ser Jaime went charging in to defend them with his sword drawn, like an idiot.”

Tyrion chuckles, but the Queen’s eyebrows seem to knit together and Brienne rushes to clarify the matter. “Not to hurt Drogon, you must understand! Just to keep him back, whilst the others escaped. I was down in the yard. I could see that your child was simply confused by the chill and the battle. So I killed a sheep and dragged it up to the battlements. I shouted his name as I threw it over the wall, into a group of White Walkers. That served to distract him very well.” She shrugs, a little shyly perhaps, and wincing internally at her own lack of diplomacy. She knows she is starting to babble. She very rarely babbles, truly not at all since she was a young girl, and this seems like an unfortunate place to be doing so. Still, she can’t stop herself. “It turns out that Drogon really likes sheep. He’ll kill any number of White Walkers to keep his sheep.”

“Ah,” says the Queen, no longer trying to hide her amusement. “I thought I recognised the three light scratches along your left arm.”

Brienne nods. “Yes. Drogon got a bit...temperamental when I ran out of sheep. There weren’t that many to begin with, truth be told. It being winter. He likes horses, well enough, but I don’t think they sit as easily in his belly.”

Daenerys Stormborn, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, holder of the Iron Throne and ruler of most of the known world, smiles, lifts the enormous hands of the Maid of Tarth, and kisses them.

“I thank you for your time, Lady Brienne. We shall talk again, soon. Perhaps we could go to visit Drogon together?”

Brienne, even as she inclines her head in agreement and polite respect, tries to bite her tongue. She fails, spectacularly, even if she manages to keep her voice level. “I hope you have some sheep.”

They both end up grinning widely and then the Queen turns away, speaking to Lord Tyrion as she leaves the room with her maidservant.

“This one has much honour. You may ask her about your idea. I will seriously consider the other matter.”

They watch in stillness as the two small women leave the chamber, the door closing behind them.

As soon as it is shut, Tyrion walks across the room to rest his hand, softly, over hers.

“Are you well, my Lady?”

She leans her head to one side, considering the point that she had never before regarded her memories of Harrenhal as good. “I am unharmed.”

“This strange ambush was something I failed to anticipate. Though I don’t think I could have afforded you a better robe. I am sorry.”

Brienne doesn’t care for this level of self examination. “I do not wish for grand robes, Lord Tyrion.”

Eyes, not entirely dissimilar to his brother’s, look up at her with warmth. “And this, amongst other things, greatly increases your honour, by my own, deeply flawed estimation.”

He ambles away to a chair and pulls himself up into it, somewhat awkwardly. She seats herself, too. She is truly moved by his reference to her honour, even if he is only being kind. “Thank you, Lord Tyrion. But what is this idea?”

He waves a hand, dismissively. “The idea is secondary, right now. It is the other matter that is important.” He pauses, staring at her seriously. “We may yet be able to save Jaime.”

“How?” The question is immediate and crucial and she doesn't care if she almost shouts it. If Jaime’s younger brother thinks it is inappropriate for her to not be devious or political. She is not made for those things.

He will not make the answer short, of course. “Daenerys. She knows that her father was called Mad Kings Aerys. She knows this was probably not untrue. She simply does not know why he was killed. It was obviously not to gain the Iron Throne, because my brother could have taken it right then and there. But Jaime has never spoken of the matter and...”

She knows he has seen her face twitch, or some other tell-tale sign, when he ceases talking, midsentence.

His voice becomes urgent. “My Lady. He has told you? Please, you must tell me.”

She examines her conscience, though there really is no need. The answer is clear. “No, my Lord, I must _not_. I swore to Jaime that I would never speak of the matter.”

Tyrion looks almost enraged, for a moment, until she raises a hand to speak further.

She is firm. “I will tell you, however, that breaking that oath was probably the single most honourable act of Ser Jaime Lannister’s life. I do not say that lightly. I will not lie to you. I hated him for it. I despised him. And now, now that I know the truth, I cannot. I would not. I might well have done the same, in his position. I hope I would have had the strength to.”

Tyrion leans back in his chair, his fingers steepled in front of his chin. She can’t quite understand him, and doubts she ever will, but she is happy to let the pure politician of the family think for his brother.

He is apparently appreciating the ceiling when he replies. “If you will not speak of it, then he must. To the Queen, herself.”

Her reply is swift. “Then the answer is simple. Ensure that I am present, when she asks him to.” Tyrion redirects his gaze from the rafters to her, full of interest. “I will make him speak.”

He sees the determination in her with no small level of levity. “I do believe you will, our Maid of Tarth. You seem to be a very useful sort of person to have around.”

She shrugs.

They sit in silence for a while, but then she is driven to ask a question, herself.

“How is he?”

Tyrion seems to pull himself out of his own thoughts. “Complaining that his current quarters have a terrible view.”

“That sounds a bit familiar, I think.” It is a good sign. “I am glad he is well. All things considered.”

Tyrion laughs. “All things considered.”

They talk on, long into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is a link to a wonderful piece of fanart, based on this chapter (I know, I couldn't believe it, either!), by the lovely ladyoftarth-posts:
> 
> http://ladyoftarth-posts.tumblr.com/post/75337852058/there-are-many-times-i-want-to-scrap-what-im
> 
> Thank you, LoT! This makes me smile. So much. You have no idea. *Hugs*


	5. The Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The war is over. Some of them hadn’t thought that they would outlive it. And yet...
> 
>   
> Banner by [Ro Nordmann](http://ro-little-shop-of-wonders.tumblr.com)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Nope. Really don't own it.

CHAPTER FOUR: THE QUEEN

 

It has the feel of a feast, as opposed to the time of judgement for a Kingslayer.

The Throne Room is full of gaily dressed courtiers and anybody else who has managed to find an excuse to cram themselves in.

They are all here for blood.

She has never had more than the necessary time for angry mobs, and this is the most gaudy and vulgar angry mob she has ever witnessed.

She ignores them, turning her attention to those more closely connected with her. Missandei, as ever, stands at her side. She can hardly remember the time when her most precious child was not present. She is, as always, an oasis of calm in a ferocious world. She does not know how she had survived, before this one came along.

Grey Worm stands to her left, ever vigilant, ever loyal. He will never fail her.

She looks out into the hall, once more gazing upon her Dothraki men as they meander through the more enthusiastic gatherings, leaving only awkward silences and a frisson of fear behind them.

They are serving her well.

Her eyes flick about, still astonished by the colourful insubstantiality that seems to plague the court of Westeros. But then her eyes settle on the Maid of Tarth.

This is one with true substance. With worth. At one time her enemy, the woman warrior stands tall, facing the Iron Throne and away from the frippery swirling behind her, in her own battered armour. But now she wears a cloak.

Daenerys had made sure that it matched her eyes, perfectly. But today those brilliant eyes are dull, tired. It is understandable.

There have been many ravens from her homeland, bearing nothing but ill-tidings. And there is still this morning to deal with. It would be cruel to make her wait any longer. Everything now lies in the single remaining hand of Ser Jaime Lannister, the Golden Knight, former Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, the Tamer of the North, Destroyer of the White Walkers. And the Kingslayer.

The man who slit the throat of Daenerys’ own father.

She nods towards the entrance to the dungeons, and he is dragged in.

The court falls silent. The only sound that can be heard is the clanking of the chains that connect his elbows, as he endlessly, it seems, makes the forced, long walk forwards, to be thrown at the bottom of the steps before her.

He does not appear Golden. His looks old and scarred, and his clothing is torn and foul and ragged and he is blinking repeatedly, obviously trying to adjust to the light that was lacking in his cell.

He can barely seem to focus on her when she asks, coldly, “Where did my father die, Kingslayer?”

He shakes his head oddly; to see more clearly, she thinks. He points his arms towards a large slab at the foot of the stairs.

“Place him there. On his knees.”

There is an audible rush of air expelled from her prisoner’s lungs as guards lift him, only for one of them to kick him viciously behind his left knee, making him fall into place. She will not pretend that she does not enjoy his discomfort.

But she must know. So she proceeds.

Her request is simple. “Why did you kill my father?”

His shoulders slump, but his voice indicates that he will not be giving any ground. “I will not say.”

She does not know why this is. He does not appear to care if his other shames are known. He does not seem to care about anything. He is very much bearing the look of one who expects to die, regardless.

Unfortunately, the matter is not that simple.

She nods at the Lady Brienne, who stalks across to him, like a sudden winter storm. She watches the big woman haul the Kingslayer up to his feet, by the front of his old tunic, with just one hand, shaking him as she does so.

It seems strange to her that he recognises her from the initial movement alone. He is not even nearly upright before he laughs, with some measure of actual happiness. “Wench! How I’ve missed you. My little brother simply refused to tell me how you were, so I thought you were dead!”

The Maid does not react verbally. She just pulls the front of his tunic further upwards until they are face to face. She is deadly serious. She has reason to be.

“Do you trust me, Ser Jaime?” she asks, seriously. She shakes him again, but now she sounds simply crushed by sadness. “Do you trust me?”

He answers instantly. “Of course.” He seems, now, to be able to focus his sight. His eyes soften.

“Always,” he whispers.

Hers eyes do not soften. “Then listen to me. You must tell them what you told me. You must.”

Her tone is laced with a deep fierceness.

The air becomes charged around them as The Kingslayer stares into The Lady Brienne’s eyes, defiantly. It is curious. It is as if they are talking, without making a sound. Then something indefinable seems to pass between them and he appears to falter.

“You must,” she almost hisses, once more. His head falls forward in silent assent and The Maid roughly releases him, taking up a position an arm’s length from his right side.

He squares his shoulders and shifts his gaze up towards the Iron Throne. Towards herself.

He waits, for a short while.

He is working very hard to appear unruffled by this audience. When he speaks his voice is bland, even if his eyes betray a small sense of disquiet. It sounds as if he is talking about the weather.

“Your father was mad.”

There is an explosion of noise around the throne room. Nobles and commoners alike roar their disapproval at the Kingslayer’s insolence. Daenerys ignores them. Through Viserys, she has seen the madness that can happen in her line. She does not think that he is lying. She watches with some masked amusement as Lord Tyrion Lannister puts his head into his hands. She glances at the Maid of Tarth. Her skin is almost grey in shock, but her grip on the hilt of her sword is firm.

Her prisoner is walking a very fine line, and his death is closer to him than he thinks. The Lady Brienne had asked that she be given the duty of removing his head, if it comes to pass. Daenerys is indifferent to the manner of it, should she make that choice, so a quick death it might be.

Dead is dead. And there is some poetry to the thought of the Kingslayer losing his life on the very spot that made his name.

But then she looks back at her prisoner. He is not cowed by the furore swirling about him, his eyes fixed on her. Yes. She thinks she believes him. So far. He may yet get the chance that others have spoken in favour of, so strongly. She holds up a hand until silence falls and nods for him to continue. She will listen. She must. She must hear this.

He continues, clearly and without malice. “I am sorry, but it is true. As King’s Landing fell, his madness increased until he gave an order. ‘Burn them. _Burn them all_ ,’ he said.”

She does not quite understand his meaning. “And why should a rightful king not burn his enemies?”

The Kingslayer draws in a deep breath. “He was not speaking of his enemies. He was speaking of King’s Landing.” He looks all about the throne room, as if to illustrate his point. “ _All_ of it.”

She does not see how this can be so, even as her instincts coil in her gut, screaming at her through her own revulsion, that this feels like a truth. She must know. “The whole city? My father had no dragons. How was he to do this?”

His answer is blunt, but not unkindly spoken. She thinks he knows how difficult a thing this is for her to hear. “Pyromancers. There were underground chambers, full of pots of wildfire, under Flea Bottom, The Hook, River Row and Cobbler’s Square, as well as under the Alchemist’s Guild itself, the Great Sept and the Red Keep.”

There are mutterings and soft cries of alarm around them and she can understand why. This could be a present danger.

Her voice cuts through the slowly rising din. “Are they still there?”

The Kingslayer speaks his next words loudly enough to be heard by all. “I do not think so. When Robert Baratheon took the throne, I ordered the Guild to destroy it all safely. They informed me that they had. And I assume any surviving stocks were used during the Battle of the Blackwater, anyway.”

The throne room falls silent, only for it to be immediately broken by a shuffling towards the doors as two robed figures attempt to leave.

Her response is sharp. “Seize them!” It is obvious what is happening and she cannot risk a spread of panic. “Close the doors,” she orders.

As the doors boom shut and the two wriggling figures are dragged forwards at arakh-point, the Kingslayer speaks up to her, a little wryly. “Perhaps not all of the stocks. Some idiots will sell anything for coin.”

He is being improperly informal, but she can do nothing other than raise an eyebrow slightly in agreement.

As the two men are spilled onto the bottom of the steps to the Iron Throne, Daenerys considers her position. She has a feeling that she will end up showing some mercy, today, but a ruler can be too merciful. She turns her attention to her new captives.

“You are members of The Guild of Alchemists? Can you safely dispose of wildfire?” They both nod swiftly to each question, eyes wild with terror. Her tone is purposely light, but her message is deadly. “This is fortunate, indeed. You will remain here, as my guests, to do so with any that is found. You will tell us of any that you know of, that our searches miss. And if I find any of which you are aware, but do not see fit to mention, you will be burned with it. Do you understand?”

The two alchemists cringe, still nodding, as shock reverberates around the room. She can nearly feel it thickening the air.

She rises and addresses the assembled host. “Be not afraid, my children. I am not my father reborn. I will not be unjust or cruel. But, equally, I will not see you harmed. Anybody that dares to risk the safety of my people so wantonly, in the future, will burn. It is the nature of the Dragon.”

There is a low hum of discussion as she reseats herself on this dreadfully uncomfortable chair that has cost her, and so many others, so much. She regards the Tamer of the North, once more.

She cannot comprehend why he has never defended himself. “Kingslayer.” The background noise stops. “Why did you not speak of this before?”

It surprises her when he just smiles. It is a smile full of cutting self-deprecation. “And oppose the word of the unspeakably honourable Ned Stark?”

She has heard much of this Stark Lord and watches as groups of people start muttering darkly, glaring at the man who killed King Aerys II. Her father.

He sighs and turns towards those that have scorned him for so long. “How many of you actually met Lord Eddard Stark? How many? He was fair, yes, but quick to judgement. Everything was black and white to him. Everything.” His voice rises with frustration. “By the Gods, he rode in here on a horse! And he found me with my sword dripping with the King’s blood! Do you think he would ever listen to me? A Lannister? A Kingslayer?” he spits out. “No. All he knew was that I had killed the king. That was all he needed to know. He did not need to ask why. And his word was unquestionable.”

He turns back towards her and begins to firmly ascend the steps to the Iron Throne. Two of her Unsullied step forwards to halt his progress, but she waves them back. “Let him approach.”

He stops when his eyes are level with hers, and he stands with such dignity that she suddenly fancies that under the dirt and the chains she can see a hint of the Golden Knight she is told he once was.

He talks softly. “I am sorry, your Grace. I had no choice but to stop your father. I had to stop him.” His voice breaks, made nothing more than a roughened and desperate rasp, his eyes wet with remembered pain and too many years of shame. _“He would have burned us all.”_

She studies him for a long time. He does not bend or break under this inspection. It is now clear to her; for all that it hurts her heart, this man is being truthful. And, more dreadfully, that he did the right thing. He killed her father. He killed the King he was sworn to protect. Yet in doing so, he had saved a whole city.

Neither of them know it but to others, it feels as if that city is holding its breath. Waiting, waiting.

She rises gently to her feet and she is sure that there is not a trace of sound to be heard, anywhere.

She speaks.

“You will live. You will be disinherited from your family’s lands and money. You will no longer be permitted to bear the name Lannister. From this day forth, you will never gain any personal wealth or true power. You will never marry, and will breed no sons to carry on your line. You will travel to a place of my choosing, there to remain for the rest of your days. And you will serve me.”

He looks into her violet eyes searchingly. She thinks he is looking for a hint of her father’s madness there. He finds none.

Wearily, he drops to a knee, on a step in front of her.

“I will serve you, my Queen,” he formally states, his head bowed.

She is no less formal in her reply. “Your service is accepted, Ser Jaime of Tarth.”

His heads jerks upwards and he blinks at her, uncomprehendingly.

“Tarth?”

She smiles, coolly. “You killed a Dragon, Ser Jaime. You will make me more.”

She raises her voice, to fill the hall. “Much of Tarth is in ruins. But its position in the Narrow Sea affords me an opportunity. The war has decimated our ranks and Tarth will become the place that will make me new, better warriors. Dragon Warriors. The Rulers of Tarth will put aside all thoughts of wealth and family, dedicating their whole lives to the military training of others. Others forged to serve the Iron Throne. Those of any background, male or female, may attempt to join the House of Tarth. Only the most gifted shall do so. They will learn the best theory and practice from all of my domain. I believe that the Starks of Winterfell often said that ‘winter is coming’. They were right. Now spring is almost here, but winter will return. We will be ready for it.” She pauses, her voice becoming coldly determined. “We will meet it with Dragons.”

This is met with a thunderous roar from the crowd. She waits patiently for it to die down, quietly stepping down to stand in front of the blue-cloaked warrioress. She notes, with some amusement, that Ser Jaime seems to have found a source of manners that he was lacking earlier, as he follows her down to take his former place at the site of her father’s end, dropping again to bended knee as he does so. Quiet falls, and she continues.

“The seat of Evenfall and the title of the Evenstar will pass to the member of the House of Tarth who has shown themselves to have the most merit to lead, regardless of their origin. The Lady Brienne, the Maid of Tarth, the Evenstar, has agreed to these terms, on the condition that her few remaining relatives may continue to hold and pass on their seats in Tarth, in the traditional fashion. I will allow this. Any that fall empty will revert to Evenfall.”

Ser Jaime glances up at the Maid with his eyes wide, at that second uttering of the word Evenstar. He clearly had not known of the loss of her father. But he also seems to slowly realise the price that it appears she has had to pay, for the merest chance of saving his own life.

The affected air of indifference he has unsuccessfully tried so hard to maintain falls away and his features grow pale with horror.

The bloodline of the House of Tarth has died, today.

The Lady Brienne, conversely, is almost made of stone, her head high, her eyes fixed to some vague point behind the Iron Throne, with no emotion evident.

Daenerys is fully aware of what she has done. She has purposefully driven a narrow and permanent wedge between two people who will probably end up longing to be together, if they do not do so already. She is not blind. She sees how they feel, even if they do not know it, yet. But personal matters must not be allowed to prevent the creation of her new Dragon Warriors and they are two of the best able to make them.

They have truly seen Winter.

They may have opposed her, when she first came to Westeros, but they are worthy.

They had barely escaped her wrath, only to end up, somehow, amongst those leading her forces against the Darkness from the Far North. And they had been mighty. Honourable.

But honour cannot remove the stain of the word Kingslayer. Or the scurrilous and, she suspects, entirely untrue rumours about the Kingslayer’s Whore.

So now they will suffer, both sweetly and unsweetly.

Yet they will still live.

And they will serve.

It is punishment enough.

She speaks to Ser Jaime of Tarth, once he has recovered his composure. “I would have the truth of these underground chambers. You are aware of their exact locations?” He explains, now properly deferentially, that whilst he does not know precisely, he can get them close enough to search effectively. She nods. “You will guide a group of my troops to these areas. For the safety of the city, we must determine what stocks of wildfire, if any, remain.”

She bids him to stand and addresses the Maid of Tarth. “You may remove his shackles.”

It is a momentary flicker on the Kingslayer’s face, nothing more. As the Evenstar deftly clicks his restraints open, as her callused fingers finally throw his chains to the floor, Daenerys Targaryen witnesses his true regard for her new Warrior Maker shine forth, before he attempts to hold his features shuttered, once more.

He looks at her as if she holds up the sky.

He does well to hide it, but his new Queen sees.

It would seem she has made the right decision. They will, indeed, serve. Of this she is now certain.


	6. The Kingslayer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The war is over. Some of them hadn’t thought that they would outlive it. And yet...
> 
>   
> Banner by [Ro Nordmann](http://ro-little-shop-of-wonders.tumblr.com)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Nope. Still don't own it.

CHAPTER FIVE: THE KINGSLAYER

 

He is slowly becoming rather sullen. Which, considering the fact that his head is surprisingly still firmly situated atop his neck, may seem a little odd. But he has his reasons.

His audience with the Queen (and half of Westeros, if he had any grasp of the matter) had ended remarkably well.

Afterwards, he had been given a few minutes of relative privacy to clean the shit of the Red Keep’s dungeons from his skin, before changing into a parcel of light clothing his brother had brought to his place of judgement; rather more in hope than expectation, he thinks. He was very grateful for the gesture.

He’d emerged to see the Maid of Tarth waiting for him, at the head of a small detachment of the Unsullied. He had started to speak to her, to try and thank her, but she had cut him off, her stance proud and her voice cool. “You must show us the areas in question, Ser Jaime.”

Her tone brooked no argument. He was too tired to care. Sleep had been scant, of late. He simply nodded and followed the order.

They had marched through King’s Landing at a fast pace. Her face was grim as she moved through the streets like a storm front at the head of their column, stopping all movement in her path. Even horses shied away from them; she looked so fierce.

When they were located, all of the other wildfire caches were found to be empty, and they have reached this last one. River Row. There is a chance there may be some found here.

It makes a certain amount of sense as a location. There is easy access to shipping to be found, hereabouts.

He watches as the Evenstar kicks her way through a door that he has indicated, as if it is made from parchment. He waits and listens, as wildfire is found. Yet all he can think of is that she will not interact with him. His wench is not there.

He has verbally tried everything to reach her, during this search. Thankfulness, sarcasm, genuine concern, arrogance. Nothing is touching her. She will not look upon him, even with mild fondness. In fact, she will not look upon him at all.

It is all far too reminiscent of those days, long since past, when she had him on a leash.

He does not like it.

She emerges, but doesn’t acknowledge him. She posts four of the Unsullied on the doorway, before turning away, her blue cloak billowing (rather dramatically, he notes) behind her as she tells them to move back to the Keep. She doesn’t even check to see if they are following her.

They are, of course.

He can’t grasp the true reason for her coldness, right now. But he can make a guess. She has given up her future for him. He doesn’t think he can blame her for being angry about that.

It rankles, though. She did not have to save him, this time. He did not ask for it and certainly hadn’t expected it. The ledger of their imagined debts to one another had been considered irrelevant for far too long, by both of them.

But if they are to be tied to Tarth, together, he hopes she does not carry on like this.

When they pass through the entrance to the Red Keep, she turns to him. She is brusque. “You can move freely here, Ser. Do not venture outside the walls.” Then she simply stalks away, a chill kind of irritation flowing off her in waves. She does not look back.

He stands stock still for a few minutes, his mind almost blank, before he decides to find her.

He has to reach her, somehow. He has to pull her back.

He takes a few steps forwards, only to stop. If he knows her, and he thinks himself entitled to consider that he does by this stage, there is no question of where she has gone.

When she is in a truly foul temper, she finds hitting things a great comfort. He looks down at his stump and sighs.

First, he’ll have to find Tyrion.

/-/-/-/-/

He shrugs into some of the hardened leather armour that is usually used by squires and the like.

He would prefer the protection offered by metal, but is far more able to secure the leathers with a single belt, than all of the buckles required with plate.

Once he finishes fumbling about (a fact that is always utterly frustrating to him), he leaves the armoury, picking up a random tourney sword from the rack by door as he does so.

He hefts it, feeling its balance as he ambles over to lean back against the wooden palings separating the practice yards from any observers. Of which, he suddenly notices, there are many.

There are only two people sparring at present and one of them is definitely winning. He looks at the faces of those gathered to watch. They seem enraptured. A certain young woman of his acquaintance seems to have picked up a following, in his absence. Good.

Not that she appears to notice them.

At the moment, she honestly just seems to be some kind of strange machine of war, battering a tall, but fairly young knight backwards, relentlessly.

The young man is by no means making a bad account of himself. He just happens to be directly in the path of a force of nature.

It is all quite unmerciful. Right now, there is no grace in her. She is simply using her sword as a cudgel, beating the man in front of her into submission.

By the time the knight falls and yields, Jaime is almost feeling sorry for him. Almost. Part of the skill of knighthood is picking one’s battles, after all.

Advice he should really be listening to himself, at this moment. Instead, he ignores it, pushing himself away from the palings and taking a few steps in her direction.

As she pulls her unsteady opponent up to his feet, Jaime chuckles, loudly and overly nonchalantly. “My Lady of Tarth, I do believe it is considered moderately bad form to leave your sparring partners a bloody pulp.” She turns to him and her face is thunder.

He continues, outwardly unfazed, momentarily polishing his battered golden hand on the end of his left sleeve. “You shouldn’t keep scowling like that. It might stick. That would make for a rather grumpy looking Evenstar.” He twirls his sword in the most outrageously flamboyant fashion and raises an eyebrow at her. “Care to dance?”

She simply raises her sword towards him.

What follows will become legend.

They circle each other in silence, the sound of excited chattering and running feet outside the palings dropping away as the world narrows to just them and the dirt beneath their feet.

The first clash of swords is a song of joy to him. Now he is alive, once more. This attack is his, but it is brief, tentative. He needs to feel the force she is applying. Unfortunately, it is a lot.

She moves forward, striking out with a little less strength this time, and they fall into long minutes of elegant patterns of swordplay that are unique to them. Then she surprises him with an unexpected upwards thrust that almost scratches his chin.

He steps back out of range, grinning. “Somebody’s been practising, I see.”

She makes no reply, just stepping in to resume the dance.

He doesn’t know how long this goes on. It could be minutes, or hours, but he thinks it is a long time. He has always found that time is inconstant in combat, stretching and shortening in odd ways. What he does know, however, is that she will not engage him verbally. He keeps trying, throwing out the occasional jest in the short natural breaks that occur, but it is like fighting a plank.

Spar. Rest. Jest. Be ignored. This becomes the pattern.

She isn’t reacting to him in any way other than the purely physical at all. He finds it deeply unsettling.

Spar. Rest. Jest. Be ignored. Over and over.

They eventually start to tire and the whole encounter begins to fall into ferocity. Elegance fails them, leaving only short bursts of frenetic clashing of swords and harsh, panting breaths; interrupted more often now, by longer moments of glaring and shoulders heaving with toll of this effort.

The taste of his own sweat is strong, in his mouth.

Her continued silence irritates him. How can she possibly be angry with him for a choice he has not made? That she, in fact, seems to have had a part in making for him?

The line between sparring and actual combat thins until he is not sure he can see it anymore. He finally decides he has had enough.

During the next flurry of activity, he completely ignores a slash that will leave his ribs sorely bruised by morning and chooses to ram his golden hand down onto her fingers, instead. Her sword falls away from her and she looks at him in shock as he raises his blade to her throat.

He does not ask her to yield, though. She’s not the yielding kind.

He steps in a little closer, to make his actual views clear. “You bought my life with yours. You _fool_ ,” he whispers roughly, just loud enough for only her to hear.

Her answer is quick, and shocking.

She wrests his blade away from him with ruthless force, even as her now empty sword-hand grasps the front of his leathers. And then she headbutts him. Hard.

His arms flail as he falls backwards. All he can do is look up at her from the dirt, stunned. All he can see is the sunlight, shining from behind her, turning her hair from straw to a halo of white gold.

When she finally speaks, her tone of voice is icily civil.

“I did not.”

She flings her newly won tourney sword away viciously and marches off towards the part of the castle that houses the lowlier, noble guests.

She still does not look back.

This is all too ridiculous. He gingerly feels the bridge of his nose as he begins to laugh, almost hysterically, in the dust, uncaring of those who watch him do so.

/-/-/-/-/

He doesn't knock, when he finally locates her chamber. He hardly sees the point. She has removed her armour and is slumped in chair and looking out of a window as he walks in, but she turns to face him immediately, speaking bluntly.

“Not everything is about you, Jaime,” she spits out. It brings him up short. He can only look at her suspiciously. She goes on. “I had accepted the new position of Evenstar, anyway.”

He can see the truth of it in her features. She is, after all, a terrible liar.

The thought of her choosing this path, regardless of him, fills him with confusion. He is aghast. It doesn’t make any sense. “Why? Why would you do this to yourself?”

She shakes her head and lets it fall into her hands, wearily. “Tarth has been virtually destroyed. Almost two-thirds of the population is gone. I can rule the survivors, yes, but I can’t protect them alone, and I have no means of securing allies and therefore troops.”

She glances back up and shrugs, ruefully. “Given my now...doubtful reputation, I couldn’t even rely on making a quick marriage for that purpose.” The look she gives him is matter of fact; not at all accusatory. “I may have land, but it is not much and I have no other wealth left.” She continues, her voice now gentle, but undaunted. “The people of Tarth are my children now. I cannot make them safe on my own. But I can accept a new way that could, fairly shortly, make them safe for generations.”

Jaime is stunned. His anger flows away like rainwater. He has underestimated his wench, once more. It had not occurred to him that she might have a broader, if somewhat ridiculously idealistic and naive, political skill than his own. Then, like lightning, he understands that he has spent too many years of his life only interested in engineering a better fate for those related to him. For those he cares most about.

And that Brienne could not even consider such a concept. Except, perhaps, for Pod. And oaths.

Fucking oaths.

He looks at her. He sees her. And this is the moment.

This is the moment when he realises that he loves her.

It is a blow to the gut.

They have been travelling and fighting together for years, now.

His mind sprints through those years, and he curses himself. Why hadn’t he realised it when he left Red Ronnet scrabbling about the floor, searching for his own teeth? Why hadn’t he known it, when she’d bid him farewell at Harrenhal? When she was wiping his arse? Why hadn’t he seen it, when she was magnificent in combat...every single time? When she had begged tearfully, on her knees, for his forgiveness after Lady Stoneheart, despite the fact that she’d told him what they were walking into and he didn’t blame her for it, one bit? Why hadn’t he felt this truth when they were trying to sleep in the chill snow of deepest winter, wrapped around each other for scant warmth and comfort? Why must he finally understand this on the very bloody day that any small hope for them is taken?

Fuck it all.

She’s right. He is a gold-plated idiot. Just as she’d told him, on the walls of Castle Black.

He could kick himself.

She breaks into his train of thought. “Jaime?” Her voice is now small, full of self-doubt. “Ser Jaime...”

He shakes himself out of his tardy realisation, and back to reality. He knows what he can’t have. But he also knows what he can. And he will have what he can. So will she. Whatever she wants. Whenever she chooses. He will make sure of it. However long it takes. The Gods take his Queen and her fucking commands.

He walks forward, desperately slowly, only to smile gently at his Maid of Tarth as he reaches out to tuck one of her many loose strands of hair behind her right ear. He speaks softly, as he runs his hand over her head, before letting it fall gently to her shoulder. She is warm under his fingers in a way he has never appreciated before, never even in true Winter. “On the day you die, the Seven will be tripping over each other to be the first to claim you.”

Her nose flares with a deeply indrawn breath, before she makes herself a cold blank, once more.

“We shouldn’t be touching each other, Ser Jaime. You are my charge, my captive.”

She doesn’t know the half of it. He grins, wryly. “I am.”

Her face remains flat, ugly, unemotional. She is at her ugliest when she hides behind her defensive walls. Her voice, however, is not. It is soft, resonating with emotion. And other than when she is angry and when she decides to shut herself away to hide it, she can never quite stop her eyes speaking for her, even when she chooses not to speak for herself. She has not missed his meaning, and the gentleness of her words hold his heart.

“You are in my care.”

The moment is heavy with feeling. He doesn’t think he has imagined the weight she has given to that last sentence. She continues.

“But there are conditions to this care. We both know it.” She suddenly swats his hand away like a fly.

He sighs and takes a step backwards, letting his hand fall to his side. “You are so bloody honourable.”

She raises an eyebrow, just a little.

“One of us has to be. We leave for Tarth in the morning, Jaime. I think you might want to say some goodbyes, before we go.”

He turns and moves towards the door, but as his hand catches the cold of the handle, he does not feel he can leave just yet. He looks back at her. “If this was already your chosen path, why were you so angry with me?”

She looks at him, levelly. But then she lets a soft, breathy laugh, tinged with relief. “I was to be your _executioner_ today, Jaime! And when you said, ‘Your father was mad,’ you almost stopped my heart.”

“Oh. Sorry. And thank you.” He pauses. “I think. Well, this is awkward, isn’t it?”

She grins. “A little.” He has never been so glad to see her crooked teeth. He decides to change the subject. “What about your relatives? Will they be angry that they have no chance of gaining Evenfall?”

She shrugs. “It is likely, but there aren’t many of them left and most of them are quite elderly. They retain their seats and do you think they will attack a school of war for gain?”

He smiles. “Well, now that you put it that way...”

She raises herself to her feet, only to drop into the most ladylike and courtly curtsey he has ever seen her manage. “I will see you in the morning, Ser Jaime of Tarth.”

He replies in kind, with a deferent nod and a truly chivalrous bow. “Lady Brienne of Tarth.”

It has been a very long day, full of surprises, and he may, indeed, be an idiot. But as he walks along the corridors of the Red Keep, he holds on to something he hopes he will be able to witness, for a very long time. Something he had not known this morning.

She lives.

And he grasps, firmly, on to another thing that he did not know this morning, but already feels as natural as breathing.

He loves her.

/-/-/-/-/

They have been sitting in silence since he arrived, all quietly poured wine and observation.

Eventually, Tyrion speaks. “So, what did you think of my plan?”

Jaime leans back in his chair, looking at his little brother carefully. He should have known, really. This whole Tarth idea practically reeks of his youngest sibling. “It is...passable.”

“You are still breathing, brother mine. I would regard that as more than passable.” He narrows his eyes and smiles too, too knowingly. “And I do not believe I am the only one who thinks so.”

Jaime frowns at him. “Stop it, Tyrion.”

Said brother hefts his flagon of wine, nonchalantly. “She is a terribly honourable beast, isn’t she?”

“She is no beast!” Jaime screws up his face a bit when he realises that his reply might have been a tad over enthusiastic and that he is now leaning forward in his chair, glaring at his most beloved kin.

Tyrion merely raises an eyebrow. “So you do see her. Interesting. You will be careful, yes?”

His answer is soft. “I would not risk her.”

“Good. Because I have met her properly now, and if you were even thinking of doing so, I would beat you myself.” At Jaime’s sudden burst of laughter, he waves his free hand in the air. “Yes, yes. Or I would have somebody else beat you!” He pauses and smiles. “Or just leave it to the Lady, herself.”

Jaime nods. “That is the most likely scenario.” He looks at his brother, seriously. “Tell me, Tyrion. Why this sudden rush of concern for the Maid of Tarth?”

His little brother drums the fingers of his left hand on the arm of his chair for long moment, before answering. “Because some people, some very rare people, are not like us. They are better. And that makes them all the more worth keeping safe. Besides, I think her head is so stuffed with these strange notions of honour that there can’t be any room left for self-preservation. Wouldn’t you say?”

Jaime grins. “Clearly you haven’t met the Maid of Tarth as properly as you think.”

It is, apparently, Tyrion’s turn to laugh. “Brother mine, you simply have no idea.”

/-/-/-/-/

They are compelled to set off to sea under cover of night, despite the threat of bad weather, because the Straits of Tarth are now so dangerous, being constantly criss-crossed by pirates and others with even darker purpose.

Their two small ships leave port, quietly, almost unlit, loaded with tents, supplies and unhappy, tired looking soldiers. Very few of them are destined to be Dragon Warriors, but they are bound to follow the orders of the holder of the Iron Throne.

It costs a great deal, but the Queen is happy to supply the coin for long trek to Storm’s End, the risky crossing, and the barest number of men to secure them when they get there. She wants her Dragon Warriors quite badly. They have been assured that other ships will follow.

The sea journey is terrible, with them encountering the tail end of a vicious spring squall during the night, even though they are so far south.

Ser Kyron is magnificently cheery about the whole thing, his beard running with water as he bellows into the face of the storm, until his youngest daughter becomes violently seasick. He settles in to helping his wife, the pretty and meek Aryena, in keeping the young one calm and relatively well.

Jaime is lucky enough to be able to bear even the roughest of sea voyages with at least a modicum of equanimity. As Brienne is stood at the prow of the ship, stock still, immovable, a living figurehead trying desperately to see ahead through the wailing rain, looking for home, he takes it upon himself to check on their fellow passengers. There are two blue cloaks on this voyage, after all.

The soldiers grouped on deck look dreadful, almost to a man. One poor lad has soaked his own boots in vomit, and even the hand that grips his spear with white knuckles is smeared with the mess from his mouth. Jaime attempts to help him wipe himself clean, but gripping the side rail with only his bent elbow and stump makes him unsteady on the rolling deck. He can merely sympathise with the lad, gripping his shoulder firmly before moving on.

The three Dothraki on board are also truly ill and he tries to speak to them, offering assistance, but either they do not understand or they do not wish for his interference. After a few words, he leaves them leaning woefully against the side of some steps, their expressions weary and hopeless.

It is a bleak night.

The ropes are oddly sharp, broken strands of the salty, wet fibres scratching his palm deeply as he carefully edges himself back towards the Maid.

They stand there in long silence, and the rain beats down from the black sky, as the winds continue to wail.

At length, the weather begins to settle and Tarth appears on the horizon in the grey dawn, and he watches Brienne’s face becomes set and pale. Her full lips narrow as she takes in the silhouette of Evenfall, high above the small town. He has never been to Evenfall, or even to Tarth, so he must ask. “What is it?”

Her voice is small. “The South Tower is not there. It has been a beacon for mariners for above fifty years. It is _gone_.”

He narrows his eyes at the castle. “It’s too far up for conventional weaponry. Undermining?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t think so. The rock is too hard to mine easily.”

He sighs. “We shall see soon enough, my lady.”

It takes them another hour to land at port and they do not move from their places at the prow of the ship, the whole time.

It is clear that the port has been quite badly damaged; yet there are clear signs of attempts at reconstruction. They take this all in silently, as they glide towards the shore.

Suddenly Brienne turns towards him, grasping his upper arms almost painfully, even though her face is lit with the deepest joy.

“Lolla! It’s Lolla, Jaime. She’s alive!”

He wants to ask her who Lolla is, but her attention has already been torn back to land. Now all of the quiet, cold dignity that Brienne has purposely shrouded herself with, of late, is gone away. She leans over the side of the ship, grinning like a nameday child as she waves (with both hands) wildly at an old, round woman who is waiting patiently on the quayside.

“Lolla! LOLLA!”

The answer to these desperate calls is a shout laced with fondness and humour. “I can hear you, Enni! They can probably hear you in the Sea Inn.”

He looks at his travelling companion, oddly. “Enni?”

She glances at him for a mere moment, her answer breathless, almost lost in her happiness. “She has always called me that. She was my nursemaid, after my mother passed.”

Her almost overwhelming joy makes him smile.

By the time the ropes are being tied to the stone quay, Brienne is already eagerly waiting for the gangplank to be lowered. One of her feet is actually impatiently tapping the deck. The moment it hits dry land, she nearly sprints across it, rushing to the woman waiting there.

He follows, with less haste.

“Lolla!” She reaches down, almost completely enveloping the woman in a huge hug. All Jaime can see are two tiny and slightly pudgy hands reaching around the Evenstar, patting her gently on her lower back. After a few moments, he hears a muffled voice. “I can’t breathe, little one.”

‘Little one’ is an endearment he notes with some amusement. Though he doesn’t think he will ever chance it with the Maid of Tarth. That way lies further dust-eating. Brienne steps back, awkwardly, releasing Lolla. “Sorry. I’m just so hap...”

“What is _this_?” The question is quiet, but it cracks out like a whip and it is utterly compelling in tone. He can see, momentarily, a hand flick up towards Brienne’s cheek, before a surprisingly quick bustle of movement brings this Lolla away from her former charge and squarely in front of himself. Just as he realises that she is extraordinarily short, barely a middling child’s hand span taller than his brother, he also notices that she is glaring up at him, furiously. Her voice is sharp.

“Was it him?”

He almost sighs in resignation. His general reputation has preceded him once more, it would seem.

But he is too busy to answer, looking down into dark eyes, almost black in colour, as they regard him with sheer anger. He gazes back, unfazed. As the Kingslayer, and as the son of the late Tywin Lannister, he is exceptionally well trained to deal with looks of disdain.

He is impressed, though. This tiny person, with once darkest brown hair that is now almost grey, and most notable in appearance for the disproportionately large breasts that sit heavy and low on her chest, as if reaching out for her waistline, is quite fierce. And clever, he believes.

He thinks he will like her. And her position as the one who seems to have been a second mother to Brienne, saving her in infancy, means he is indebted to her. This does not result in him buckling under her ire, though. Far from it. The look he sends back to her is, perhaps, far too well practised.

It is polite, lacking guilt, perhaps even slightly disinterested.

Yet it is not weak.

A soft voice interrupts this unspoken confrontation. “No, Lolla. He _saved_ me.” A large hand settles onto a tiny shoulder, reassuringly. “More than once.”

The old woman’s eyes hold his for a short while more, narrowed and shrewd, before they soften somewhat. She nods at him, minutely, before glancing up at her ‘little one’. Her only comment is mildly spoken. “Then he may pass muster.”

She turns and walks firmly away, without apology. Jaime finds this comforting, in an odd fashion.

He thinks he can see where a rather taller woman may have found some of her strength.

He goes back to the ship, dodging the eager people disembarking, to grab a couple of their bags.

He returns to dry land, catching up with the ladies in a short time. As he approaches, the Maid of Tarth quietly asks a question.

“How did you survive?”

The old woman huffs. “Well, first some of the Fire Lovers came. Almost three years ago. Fredrick Redbeard, your smith, gathered as many oldfolk, women and children as he could and told me to lead them to the Chamber of Fallsong. He had arranged for supplies to be stored there some time earlier in the war. Just in case.”

“And it worked?”

Lolla looks at her little one as if her mind has fallen out of her head. “Obviously. As I’m still alive.” She pats Brienne on her hand, affectionately. “It turns out they have some odd superstitions about waterfalls. Which is stupid, if you ask me.”

“How many did you manage to save?”

Dark eyes turn serious. “That time? A hundred and six. But others invaded later. Seventy-eight were saved by Fallsong, all told.”

The number is small, but even Jaime can see that it is likely seventy-eight vulnerable people who would otherwise be dead.

He sees Lolla grimace. “And only another two hundred and four other people survived in the end, here in town. I’m sorry, my lovely.”

He watches as Brienne bundles up the little round woman in her arms, almost fiercely. “Oh, Lolla, don’t be sorry. I am the one who should be sorry. I wasn’t here. Thank you.”

“Nobody blames you, My Lady. You could not save us all by yourself. We are only glad that you have returned. And I am sorry. The situation is bad. Some of Evenfall still stands, but there is nobody to man it. It is damaged. Stripped bare and abandoned. We are hardly able to make things better, here in the town. Maester Arth was the last to leave the Hall and he is now lodging in the Sea Inn, reduced to bartering his skills in helping the injured. In truth, even the pirate folk are staying away, now. There is nothing left here for them to want. Everything of value is gone.”

Brienne strokes the hair of, effectively, her mother with true softness and care. Clearly she is preoccupied with this awful information, but she attempts to distract Lolla, if only briefly.

“Lolla, a Lady Aryena Chartney has travelled with us. She was not highborn and her husband, Ser Kyron, tells me that she has good skills as a weaver. She would be happy to weave, again. Could she work with you?”

Dark eyes look up into blue, warily. “There is not much work to be had, Enni. There are so few of us, now.”

Brienne reaches down to wrap an arm about Lolla’s shoulders and speaks to her, conspiratorially.

“Well, I will require a lot of these cloaks at least, soon enough. There are going to be soldiers here. _Lots_ of soldiers.”

The shorter woman looks up, her face now alive with interest. “Then yes. I like soldiers.”

“I know, Lolla.” She throws a quick smile at Jaime. “There really should be songs about how much she likes soldiers.”

Lolla appears to take no offence at this, merely nodding lightly in agreement. “This is true. Though I did hear one, recently, about you throwing a goat.”

He and Brienne answer in tired unison. “It was a _sheep_.”

“Oh,” she says, looking at them both with an odd mixture of interest and disappointment. “That’s boring. Even I’ve thrown a sheep.”

She squares her small shoulders. “Come. I will take you about.” Her small, round face turns serious, once more. “Though there is not much left to see.”

Brienne swivels about on her heel and asks Ser Kyron if he would mind supervising the setting up of a camp for the soldiers and the few Dothraki. There is a small amount of open ground, where the herdmarket once was, that is suitable. He waves her off, quite happily, taking the poor sea travellers immediately in hand with much characteristic enthusiasm. “Go, my Lady. You must greet your people. Take all day, if you must. Take a week! By the time you return, we shall all be snug in our tents.”

Their tour of what remains of this small town is depressing and heartening, in unequal measure. It is a long and difficult walk. The amount of visible damage on the harbour front has been minimised by admirable attempts by those who have survived the war to rebuild it. To try and make their port work, however unsuccessfully. But over half of the three streets that lie behind it are empty plots or husks of buildings that have been burned, irreparably.

Where two roads join, the Evenstar stands in front of one such husk, her eyes wide, her voice unbelieving.

“Mikken lived here.”

Lolla steps forward to touch her hand. “He died here too, Enni. I am very sorry.”

Brienne instantly whirls away from the smaller woman and towards him. Jaime unexpectedly finds himself hit by an armful of Maid. Within a moment though, she stiffens, as if just becoming aware of what she is doing. She swiftly steps back from him, patting his forearms lightly just before she breaks contact, only to turn away from them both, softly keening into her own hand. It doesn’t last for long, and he nods at Lolla, reassuringly. She will be well.

He then talks to his dearest friend, quietly. “I did not know Mikken. But I do not think that he would want to cause you this pain, my Lady.” She looks back around and blinks at him. He catches her gaze and holds it. “We can mourn the dead. But first, we must see to the living.”

The Maid of Tarth breathes in deeply, straightening her back and becoming impossibly tall, once more.

“You are right, Ser Jaime. And I apologise for touching you inappropriately.”

By the Seven, this is ludicrous! They know each other too well to bear this false sense of propriety, surely? He glances to his side and rolls his eyes at Lolla. “Her idea of inappropriate is a bit different to ours, isn’t it?”

She raises a jaunty eyebrow in response. “You know, Enni, I don’t think he really is as bad as they say.” An inclination of her head towards him shows a sure warming of approval. “Let us go to the inn. You both need to eat, I think.”

/-/-/-/-/

When he meets Fredrick Redbeard in the Sea Inn, there is a moment of brotherly solidarity between them, before Jaime feels utterly humbled. He lost his right hand in this war. This is widely known. Fredrick has somehow lost his right arm, up to his elbow. He can’t imagine it happened well. This has gone almost unnoticed. They nod at each other wryly though, when they both note it. But this enormous, quietly spoken fellow is a smith. Was a smith. For all that is has been hard for himself, you only need one hand to wield a sword. A blacksmith cannot work without both. Yet there is no sadness in this Redbeard fellow. He doesn’t carry the air of one that considers himself lost. He seems to have found other ways to be useful.

He is a fine example of a man.

Jaime wonders, momentarily, if this whole isle is peopled by folk with indescribable amounts of honour, when he notices his wench walking up to a couple of tired soldiers he recognises from the sea crossing. She asks them, firmly, if they have permission to be away from camp, before sloppily plonking tankards of ale in front of both of them when they promise that they do.

He is pretty sure that they don’t, but he doesn’t think it matters, today.

He considers his position. It is a strange, homely place, this island, but he is suddenly more convinced than he could ever have previously been that he can quite happily spend the rest of his life on Tarth.

/-/-/-/-/

Once they have eaten and spoken for some time, Lolla tries to convince her little one not to go up to Evenfall as the evening draws near, but the Evenstar will hear nothing of it.

_Stubborn wench._

They carry a bag of supplies each, just the two of them (she refuses a larger escort, safe in the knowledge that it is abandoned), walking up the difficult approach to Evenfall. As they start out, she explains that a peculiarity of this castle is that there is one way in, which has only ever been accessible on foot. The stables were always near the herdmarket. Supplies were hoisted in, daily, although stores were plentiful.

As they get higher up, the world becomes silent. It is ominous.

The only sound is the occasional knocking of their greaves against the steep steps ahead of them, as they move ever upwards. About halfway up, he decides he no longer thinks her suggestion of their leg armour being the only metal they wear slightly odd.

He takes careful note of what he is seeing, as they ascend. The damage is far worse, up close. It is bad enough from the outside.

But then they walk through the gatehouse, and into a nightmare.

It is a ruin.

A brittle shell.

The courtyard is littered with rubble. It seems to originate from the south corner, but it is _everywhere_. Most of the windows are broken, and even the roof of the Great Hall appears to have partially collapsed.

Brienne peers about warily for a long while, her face looking like a lost child’s, before she just turns away and walks over to a nearby wall, only to slump to the ground next to it in shock.

He wanders off and in short measure, finds a small, fractured piece of stonework that is blackened on one side. This seems impossible, yet he must know. He rubs the surface lightly and sniffs his fingertips. His stomach clenches in revulsion as he moves back towards the Maid, dropping down against the wall, to her right.

“It was undermined.”

When she can find her voice, she sounds bewildered. “It makes no sense. The damage hasn’t formed an easy access point, and it would’ve had to have been a long siege. But the townsfolk said it only lasted for weeks.”

“No. They didn’t have to dig too far.” He lifts up his blackened fingers and nearly chokes on his next words. “I think I may have found where some of the wildfire went.”

She turns her head sharply towards him, blinking. Just blinking. The sky is beginning to darken, and Brienne grasps the edge of her cloak, her large fingers gripping it convulsively as she looks at him. Blinking. Blinking. All he can see is blue.

Then she finally breaks. He doesn't blame her.

He has seen her cry before, but never like this; awake, and with sharply indrawn gulps of air developing into chest-heaving sobs that seem to rattle her whole frame, endlessly. It hurts his heart to see it. He slowly reaches out with his handless arm, moving her gently around so she can rest her head on his shoulder. Her left hand reaches to grab the tunic covering his chest as repeatedly as her right still awkwardly grasps her blue cloak, between them. Her fingers grip tightly, then release. Grip. Release. Over and over.

She continues to weep for some time, but then it trails off. She falls silent, with only the occasional hitched intake of breath to be heard. Her hands eventually still. When she finally speaks, he realises that she has moved a little closer. Her chapped lips brush side of his neck as she does so, and he tries desperately not to think of it as her question spills out, husky and raw. “How am I going to do this, Jaime?”

He reaches up with his stump to lift her chin until their eyes are locked together, so close that he thinks can feel his own breath returning from her skin, and he pours as much truth and feeling into his reply as is possible. “We are going to do this, Brienne. I swear it.”

Her reaction is not quite what he expects. She immediately sniffs loudly, and wipes her nose noisily on her sleeve (right there, nearly wiping his own in the process). He finds it frankly adorable; though he cannot, for the life of him, figure out why. And then she smiles, her face blotchy and her eyelids swollen, yet her eyes themselves so very blue. Her voice is worn and tired, but dry. “Are you swearing an oath, Ser? Because your history with oaths has been...questionable.”

He clambers up to his feet, taking special care to rub her hair into an even messier state on the way. “That’s my wench.”

He reaches down and hauls her up to her feet. But then, involuntarily, they tentatively look about once more, taking in the enormous task that awaits them.

They stand silently, noting features of the wreck about themselves slowly, with eyes wide in the fast encroaching darkness.

All of the time, a lone hand does not let go of a sword hand.

The fall of the South Tower has affected other parts of the fortress, and Brienne will not have them venture into it, as twilight coolly covers them, to find a place to sleep indoors. There are too many windows broken, too many holes in too many walls, for it to be safe. And travelling back to the warmth of the inn is clearly out of the question. She will not have her children see her like this.

As weak. As a weeping maiden. He need not ask these things. He simply knows.

So instead they huddle together very quietly, without words, only to sleep unquietly, wrapped up in shared blue cloaks, in the safest corner of the courtyard of their broken home.


	7. The Knight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The war is over. Some of them hadn’t thought that they would outlive it. And yet...
> 
>   
> Banner by [Ro Nordmann](http://ro-little-shop-of-wonders.tumblr.com)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: of course I don't own it. That would be ridiculous.

CHAPTER SIX: THE KNIGHT

 

As soon as he’d received the raven’s message, he had set out for Tarth.

The journey had not been entirely without peril, but as he’d been travelling alone, on a small but sturdy mount gifted to him by the Lady of Winterfell, it had been moderately swift. The gradual emergence of green, of life, from the colourless and cold blanket of winter, as he moved southwards, had been a joy to him.

He was surprised that his letter of passage had not been needful, at Storm’s End.

Apparently, small groups of ships leave for the Sapphire Isle every few days now. There is a curious condition to gaining a place on board that is an order direct from the Iron Throne. Any person willing to serve Evenfall, or anyone wishing to become a ‘Dragon Warrior’ may sail for free. The term Dragon Warrior makes him a little uneasy; it does not sound like something that the Lady Brienne would involve herself in creating.

Still, he settles himself on the deck between a group of cheery stonemasons (who may or may not have been drinking all night) and two silent warriors with dark skin and terrifying looking swords.

Barely an hour into the crossing, it becomes clear that the stonemasons have indeed been carousing recently. Even though the weather is quite fine, their little ship is moving at a fair clip through sizable waves. The deck becomes slippery with vomit and he edges over towards the two warrior men who grin at him, waving him closer. He sits next to them in silence all the way, but they are friendly enough, even offering him a strip of dried meat at one point. He chews thoughtfully on their kind offering, wondering how long ago it was that he wasn’t familiar with the taste of horseflesh.

The short voyage swallows up most of the day. The men next to him exchange words only occasionally, in a musical language he does not understand. He remains quiet and still, only rising to his feet when the increased movement of the sailors about the deck indicates that they are approaching land.

His first view of the island of Tarth stuns him. It is beautiful. But as they get closer, the damage it has suffered during the Winter War comes into focus. There is much for the Maid of Tarth to do here. He will help her. That is his only purpose now.

As he walks down the gangplank, he is aware that he is moving in the way of many young men; awkwardly, as if his style of motion has not yet caught up with his growth.

On the quayside a small, bustling woman tries to bring order to the varied folk making landfall.

She makes them wait in a line whilst she notes down their names and skills, somehow juggling the use of parchment, quill and inkwell deftly.

It is a while before he reaches the front of the line.

He speaks a little nervously when he reaches her. “I am here to squire for the Lady Brienne.”

Dark eyes look up at him disbelievingly, but with warm indulgence. “That’s nice, young man. What’s your name and what are your skills?”

“I am Podrick Payne, and I…”

“You are?” she interrupts, smiling brightly. “Really?” At his small nod, she turns and shouts fiercely at a large man with red hair and one arm. “Fredrick! You’ll have to finish up here.”

The reply sounds a tad long suffering. “Lolla, you know I can’t write anymore.”

She imperiously orders those still waiting to stay exactly where they are and tells Pod to follow her. She goes to this Fredrick, shoving the writing implements and parchment untidily into his large hand. The inkwell immediately spills onto his sleeve, but he doesn’t react, other than to sigh.

She looks to the weary, seaworn stonemasons gathered nearby.

“Can any of you write?” An older man nods. “Good. Help Fredrick, here. Welcome to Tarth.”

Fredrick peers down, pointedly. “Lolla, why do I have an inky sleeve?”

She grins, all teeth and enthusiasm. “This is _Pod!_ ”

A bushy eyebrow is raised, and he feels himself being measured by the serious gaze of the big man in front of him. After a few long moments, Fredrick breaks into a smile. “Hello, Pod. You’re taller than I’d thought you’d be.” He glances back at Lolla. “Go on then, woman. Take him to Enni!”

Pod is instantly pulled away by the arm as this tiny bundle of energy propels them both along, even as she darkly mutters, “Call me ‘woman’, will he? I’ll show him!” He stumbles to keep up and he wonders how somebody with legs so short can walk so fast.

The next few minutes are a whirl. The unevenly cobbled surface beneath their feet seems to fly past, and there is a lot to see. He is disturbed by the number of people who appear to be bearing evidence of past serious injury, but the general mood feels positive. There is much damage to be seen, but it is clear that there have been concerted efforts to make repairs.

They slow as they reach some high, wooden palisades. Lolla looks up at him warmly and reaches up to pat his shoulder. “She will be so pleased to see you, little one.” She gestures to the gateway before them. “This is the Herdmarket Fort. Evenfall Hall needs fixing. You will likely be staying here, for a while. Come, she will be back, soon.”

She bustles ahead of him, through the gate and towards a small area that has been fenced off just inside, for sparring practice. There are a number of young lads and a lone girl, chopping away at one another with wooden swords, under the supervision of a burly knight and a fearsome warrior with no armour and a lot of long, dark hair. Lolla rests her chin on the top of the palings that only come up to Pod’s chest. “That’s Kholo of the Dothraki,” she whispers, almost girlishly. “He’s _lovely_.”

Pod cannot help but smile at her. She huffs back, dismissively. “Yes, I know, but a girl has to dream, no matter her age,” Lolla sighs. “Besides, I’ve heard some tales about you, too, Podrick.”

She elbows him in a jolly fashion, but he is horrified. Lolla is all friendliness as she continues. Teasing friendliness, naturally. “Don’t worry, young man. I’ll make sure the young ladies of Tarth form an orderly queue, when they hear you’ve come here.” He is sure he is blushing scarlet, when a large group of men on foot come into the small fort. Most of them are bare chested and sweaty, obviously from a long day of labour.

He looks to the woman beside him. Lolla is very easily distracted, he notes, as she gawps at the sight unashamedly. He chuckles, unable to stop himself from doing so. So does Lolla. “Think what you will, Podrick Payne. Say what you like about me. But I am rarely miserable. Would you like some food?”

He follows this strange little woman towards the supply tents, aware that, whatever her status here, he is already quite fond of her. They almost arrive when a hand grabs him. Even as he is spinning around to face this unknown threat he unsheathes his dagger, whipping it up to the neck of his assailant. He stops the lunge just in time.

“Hello, Pod. You’re a bit jumpy today. We’ve been here for nearly two moons. Why so tardy?”

Pod blinks. That voice is unmistakable, even though he can barely manage to believe he is seeing the familiar face before him.

For there stands Ser Jaime Lannister, bare to the waist, all golden and very much alive. He must have been one of the men just arrived. He stutters in reply. “S…Ser Jaime. You are not dead?”

The Kingslayer affects an air of wounded offence. “You could be more pleased to see me, lad.”

He can hardly speak. “I am, Ser, I am! I just thought you were…dead. You are not dead.” He knows he sounds like an idiot. He cannot help it. “If…if you are alive, why are you not with your family. Or at Casterly Rock?”

“I think we have determined that I am alive, Pod. But I am a Lannister no more.” He bows. “Ser Jaime of Tarth, at your service.”

Pod is now even more confused. “Tarth?”

Jaime laughs, wrapping an arm about his shoulders. “You know, that’s exactly what I said when I heard about it.” He pats the tops of Pod’s head. “You’re getting rather tall, aren’t you? You might outstrip me, yet. What say we find dear Lolla and the food? It’s been a long day.”

In a short while, the three are sat comfortably about one of the small campfires dotted around the fort, eating well and speaking of times old and new. They are all laughing over a tale about Jaime’s brother, when a horse clatters in and pulls to a halt. Ser Jaime looks towards the gate and instantly shrugs himself back into the sweat-stained tunic he had carried back with him, grimacing as he does so. Pod follows his gaze.

She is here.

The Evenstar, as Pod now knows her to be, slides from the mount, in her armour, handing the reins to Kholo. Exhaustion is written into every line of her being, her face pale in the fading afternoon light, the skin under her eyes grey. She sees Lolla and Jaime straight away and heads towards them, only for her stride to slow as she notices Pod himself.

He scrambles to his feet to greet her as she draws close and she utters but one word.

“Kneel.”

Even as he falls to his knees, he flinches at the sound of a blade being unsheathed. He doesn’t know how he can have caused her such anger and shivers in sudden horror, until everything changes.

She rests the Valyrian steel of Oathkeeper on each of his shoulders, featherlight. Then she drops down onto a knee in front of him. When she speaks again, she is weary. But she is smiling.

“I’m too tired to go through the whole oath right at this moment, Pod. We’ll have the formal oathtaking, later. I trust you to be honourable, anyway. Is it alright if I just tell you that you are now Ser Podrick Payne, of the House of Tarth?”

He nods, his mind a blank.

There is a dry question from the side of the campfire. “Why does _he_ get to keep his family name?”

She rolls her eyes. “I don’t think he’s been slaying any kings of late. Have you, Ser Podrick?”

His answer is immediate, though he is still fumbling to understand what is happening. “No, Ser Lady.”

“I’m so glad he’s finally dropped the ‘my’ from that, you know. It was all a bit...unwieldy.”

She pulls herself back up to her feet, painfully slowly. “I’m sure the good knight is grateful for your critique, Ser Jaime.”

“And that was the _worst_ knighting I’ve ever seen, by the way.”

She grins at Pod, reaching down to grasp his hand. “I think he’s just angry that he can’t call himself a lion, anymore. Arise, Ser Podrick.”

As he finds his footing, Pod can think of only one thing to say. “But I just came here to squire for you, Ser Lady.”

She lifts a hand to his face, full of affection. “You can squire for me, if you like, Pod. But you’ll have to do it as a knight.”

Then he is swept up in a group of many people, rushing forwards to congratulate him. Within moments he is being dragged away, to a ‘Sea Inn’ he thinks. He hardly has a chance to glance back, but when he does, what he sees holds his attention and troubles him. Lady Brienne is standing, simply looking at Ser Jaime, who stands motionless a few feet away, as Lolla flits about her, undoing various buckles. Normally, Ser Jaime would help her, if he could. But he does not.

He just stands there, too, in silence. After a few seconds, the Lady jerks her head in Pod’s direction, and the knight nods, quickly turning to catch up with them.

When he wrestles his way through to Pod, slapping him on the back heartily, his tone is full of joy. “I think it may be time for a celebratory ale or two, Ser Podrick!” Yet his eyes tell a different story. His eyes are speaking of nothing but hurt.

/-/-/-/-/

Within days, the difference in the two becomes apparent to him. They never touch one another.

On their travels, he had seen them punch, hold, strike, tease and nurse each other, with no real shyness, though perhaps with occasional irritation. They avoid it carefully, now.

He sees it particularly strongly after he has made his first ascent to Evenfall. He is much slower to reach the castle than everybody else. He is unused to all of those steps. But when he reaches the courtyard, the others have formed a chain to move rubble. Lady Brienne and Ser Jaime happen to have fallen in next to one another, and are actually making sure that even their fingers do not make contact when they are passing the broken stones along, rotating the pieces of heavy rubble in awkward ways to prevent any such occurrence. It is painful to watch.

Once Pod has caught his breath, he elbows his way in between them.

/-/-/-/-/

His formal oathtaking is by no means grand, but it is joyful. It is also not lonely.

Three other Knights are being brought into the House of Tarth with him.

He stands as Ser Podrick Payne, with Ser Kholo, Ser Kyron Chartney and one extremely shocked looking Ser Fredrick Redbeard.

Lolla gives them their new blue cloaks with great happiness, though most of it seems reserved for the quiet former smith. “You saved us from the Winter War. Thank you, Ser,” she mutters softly, blushing before she curtseys unsteadily and steps away.

He doesn’t remember much of the following celebration. Though he does recall Ser Jaime and Ser Kholo laughing themselves to breathlessness when Ser Kyron declares that he must be the best knight, because he has been knighted twice, now. Only to have his head topple to the table immediately, with a rumbling snore.

/-/-/-/-/

As he passes The Evenstar and the Tamer of the North on the endless stairs up to Evenfall, one day, he hears a snippet of conversation. They are looking down onto the town.

He is speaking. “It is a good place for a new herdmarket, yes. But we don’t have enough livestock for a permanent one. I would suggest a square for general usage.”

The Lady silently agrees.

At her nod, he continues. “I did think of a name. Mikken’s Square?”

Her voice breaks as she replies. “It is a good name, Ser Jaime. Thank you.”

/-/-/-/-/

The Lady Brienne is under much pressure, as her responsibilities go beyond this place, covering the whole of Tarth. She comes to rely heavily on Ser Kholo, as her Master of Horse, and her growing Dothraki contingent, to ensure the security of the island.

Her presence is required everywhere, it seems. And she is constantly on the edge of exhaustion.

Pod grows increasingly worried. He assists her as much as he can, but nobody else can be the Evenstar.

One night, as he removes the last of her armour, she slumps to the floor, looking up at him, like a tired child. “What am I _doing_ here, Pod? I am supposed to be making Dragon Warriors. And all I am making is master builders and stonemasons.”

He reaches down to her and helps her shuffle onto her thin mattress.

“You are doing well, my Lady. You are doing well.”

She is asleep by the time he finishes speaking.

/-/-/-/-/

Rebuilding is a slow process.

The population is increasing, which is absolutely necessary, but it is a precarious balance.

Resources are still scant.

As for Evenfall, Lady Brienne is certain the right path to take is to ensure the safety and comfort of the townsfolk before the committing to the full reconstruction of the fortress above them.

Others do not agree. Ser Jaime of Tarth is amongst them.

Pod’s view is firmly aligned with his Ser Lady’s. They need the fortress, yes, but many of those who would take advantage of it, in a crisis, can no longer do so. There are too many missing legs, hereabouts.

The Maid of Tarth orders Ser Jaime to ensure the solidity of the hidden holdfast of Fallsong.

Pod watches as even their verbal relationship falls to pieces.

It is a bitter time.

He knows he should feel some comfort when they eventually start sparring together, again. At least they are touching one another.

But it a vicious thing, all passion and pain. And longing. So much longing.

Their encounters are truly bruising. It hurts to simply watch them.

/-/-/-/-/

Two years have passed.

Evenfall has been repaired well enough for some of them to live in.

And now they are starting to make Dragon Warriors.

The Queen’s faith in the Maid of Tarth is being repaid with truly fearsome soldiers. A mere handful, so far, but enough to prove that they have done exactly what she had wanted.

Daenerys Targaryen is pleased.

Pod does not care either way. He cares for them.

And it hurts his heart to see them so distant, now.

Her formal armour is Tarthian blue.

His is a dark, burnished grey, almost black. He walks as her shadow.

All bitterness seems gone, but between them there now only exists a strange air of formality. The words they exchange are practical and polite. Even when they spar, feeling is absent, leaving just a deeply skilled, yet coldly empty elegance.

/-/-/-/-/

It is night, and Pod is hungry. He ambles down into the kitchen, expecting to find it empty, but Sers Kyron, Fredrick and Jaime are all slumped in front of the fire, watching the glowing embers remaining there. He seems to have stumbled into the tail end of a conversation.

Jaime is speaking, softly. “She is a fine woman.”

Fredrick grins wolfishly. “Which one?” Kyron guffaws, whilst he waves at Pod to join them.

The look that Jaime gives the former smith is fondly withering. “Oh, but you are a funny fellow, Fredrick.”

As Pod settles himself on the fire-warmed flagstones, the one-handed smith shrugs. “I like to think so.”

/-/-/-/-/

Every few days he ventures from Evenfall Hall, of an evening.

The Sea Inn is where he hears the truth of the matter.

It is nothing but whispers at first, vague references to rumours of the fleet of Fire folk that had destroyed Evenfall.

But a further visit makes him sure of what people are thinking about the truth of the siege.

Of the wildfire.

The next thing he knows, he is scrabbling back up the steps to Evenfall.

Halfway up, he curses the fact that this whole place is nothing but stairs, his chest already heaving.

Eventually, he opens the door to Ser Jaime’s chamber, only to stop short in the doorway, taking in the sight before him. The Tamer of the North is sleeping, but not restfully. He is shivering under his blankets; his brow is furrowed and his head twitching, as if trying to shake away some past terror. Pod will not try to guess which one. There have been too many.

Yet what makes this an arresting view is the fact that The Maid of Tarth is lying next to him, on top of the blankets, softly running her hand over his bare shoulder.

If Pod were anybody else, he would be scandalised. He, however, has seen this before.

So he simply nods at her as her hand leaves Ser Jaime’s shoulder to raise a finger to her lips and obeys the unspoken, swiftly gestured order that follows, to close the door.

Then he stands and waits.

He watches as the Lady Brienne slowly extricates herself from the bed, occasionally reaching over to lay her hand on the shoulder she has just abandoned.

Then she picks up the bolster cushion that Ser Jaime had recently received as a gift from Lolla.

The older woman made it herself, weaving the cover in a repeating pattern that had lots of little golden hands on a background of Tarthian blue. Ser Jaime had promptly proclaimed it ‘the most offensive and inappropriate gift he had ever been given’ and Lolla had laughed in his face. Pod is glad that Ser Jaime likes it much better than he had pretended to. He watches as the Evenstar gently moves it into a position between his arms. He rolls onto his side suddenly, grasping the cushion tightly and mumbling incoherently.

Lady Brienne reaches over to stroke his shoulder one last time, quietening him, before moving on silent feet to stand in front of Pod. “Come with me,” she whispers.

He follows her to her chamber.

Much is clearer.

She invites him to be seated as she pulls a long, soft blue robe on over the enormously loose shift, falling to mid-thigh, that she is wearing. He settles himself into a chair, asking, “He still has bad dreams?”

She winces. “We both do.”

Pod understands. He nods. He still has bad dreams, as well.

“We can help one another in sleep, as friends. But otherwise, when we are both awake, there can only be nothing. Apart from sparring, we do not touch one another.”

“I am sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry for us, Ser. We are alive.” After all this time, Pod realises that he still feels a little uncomfortable with being called ‘Ser’. Especially by his Ser Lady.

The Lady looks at him, curiously. “So what brought you to his chamber in the middle of the night, Pod?”

He sits forward, full of earnestness. “My Lady, there are rumours about why this castle was besieged with wildfire.”

“Go on.”

He tries to soften the blow. “I do not know if it is true, but they are saying that Evenfall was a practice run for Casterly Rock. That they didn’t know the strength of wildfire and that they had to test it.”

Her voice is a dead thing. “So they chose here.”

Her face is pale with shock. She is clearly making the connections that some others had made, in the inn. Her father. Her poor father. He didn't stand a chance. He watches as she struggles with a tide of guilt, before she snaps herself back to the present.

“They will hate him,” she says roughly.

“Most of them will not,” Pod assures her.

“Then they will hate me. For my friendship with him.”

“They will not.” Of this, Pod is certain.

He sees her fight with this new information. Her fingers flex, her scarred cheek twitches and she breathes deeply as she tries to wrestle with it.

Eventually, she stills. Then they talk on.

/-/-/-/-/

“They will hate me,” Jaime insists.

“Pod thinks not,” she replies, surely.

He is heartened by the fact that she trusts his judgement so.

/-/-/-/-/

The three of them break their fast in her chamber.

An otherwise grim morning takes a lighter turn when Jaime finds out that Pod has been given the position of Arms Bearer to the Evenstar.

He nearly chokes on his bread. Then he starts laughing. He will not stop for a while, yet.

“You gave _Pod_ the keys to your private armoury? The storeroom right next to your bedchamber? Oh, wench, you have just ruined your reputation!”

She cannot understand his laughter and is harsh with him. “What? Don’t be an idiot, Jaime!”

Pod starts to shrink into his chair. He doesn’t like the course this conversation has just taken.

Jaime can hardly speak coherently. “Clearly...you haven’t heard about...this lad! Believe...me when I say that the...only real threat of invasion now is from the... _North!_ ” He swallows convulsively, trying to contain himself. “A flotilla of ships, bearing all of the...lovelorn ladies from Winterfell!” He doubles over in his seat, lost in hilarity.

Pod can only squirm in his seat as the Lady Brienne looks at Jaime, with some curiosity. She still sounds quite matter of fact. “Really? But he’s barely more than a child.” She glances towards him, apologetically. “Sorry, Pod.”

The feared Kingslayer is in pieces as he replies, his hands waving about, only to return to their places around his ribs. “And yet he...has _songs!”_ He sucks in air, furiously, trying desperately to be serious for just a few seconds. “Though I wouldn’t foul...your ears with them, of course.” He falls straight back into the enjoyment of it all, writhing uncontrollably.

It takes a couple of seconds, but then the Maid of Tarth looks at Pod, her eyes wide, as if thunderstruck. Her voice is disbelieving. “You’re ‘The Squire’? _That_ squire?”

Pod wants to melt away like a candle as Ser Jaime looks to his best friend, with sudden interest.

“You’ve heard the songs? Oh, I see. _Lolla!_ Good old Lolla! I love the one with the two...”

“Shut up, Jaime!” she interrupts, very much trying and failing to remain serious. “Can’t you see the poor boy is really embarrassed?”

Now the Maid of Tarth is giggling, surprisingly girlishly, as well, and Pod can’t help but be dragged along with the mirth, his nostrils flaring.

“Hardly a boy, from what I hear,” Ser Jaime utters.

His Ser Lady tries to speak from behind a hand she has firmly clamped across her mouth, as her shoulders shake. “Well, I don’t suppose I can take the keys back, now.” Then she gives up and doubles over as well, her laugh explosive. “Oh, Pod!”

“ _He_ hears that a _lot_.”

Even Pod is with them now. There is suddenly nothing but joy as they spend long minutes doing nothing but pointing at one another and enjoying this small window of happiness.

It takes them the better part of a half an hour for them to compose themselves properly and they are all three agreed that this has been the best conversation, of sorts, that they’ve had in years.

Though when Ser Jaime states that the Maid of Tarth leaving her chamber with the Squire and the Kingslayer might also raise some eyebrows, they have to take a few more moments to regain their proper seriousness.

When they finally reach the door, Pod watches Ser Jaime lay his hand, so briefly, on the arm of Lady Brienne. She looks at him, her eyes wide.

He speaks softly. “We haven’t spoken like this in a long time.”

“No.”

“I hope to, again.”

She smiles at him. “Yes.”

As they open the door, her shoulders are held wider and her face falls serious. She is the Evenstar, once more. That is her task.

It will be another year before Pod actually witnesses just how much they really mean to one another. And only then because he cannot look away, when he really should.

/-/-/-/-/

The waterfall that flows outside the Chamber of Fallsong is small enough to remain mostly unnoted, at least on Tarth. And as the chamber itself sings no more, it is almost always deserted.

It is where the Lady Brienne most wants to be. This is a place of her childhood, she had told him, but also a place of proper grieving for those that have been lost, at least for her.

Even under the durance of war, the good people of Tarth saw to it that the broken body of her father was brought to here, where it lies under a small cairn of stones, nearby.

She spends a little time here, every few days.

She is currently standing directly under the waterfall itself, the water pounding her skin, making her shine. She does not mind him being here. He is one of three people in the world she has no physical shyness with and, as she puts it, he is not bad with a dagger if somebody should stumble upon her.

He is happy to guard her, so he sits near the lone path into this little place of hers, waiting to turn any intruder away.

He has done this many times before. He has no doubt he will do it again.

Yet today turns out to be different.

There is a movement to the side, and a figure dives, like a dart, into the pool below the falls. Pod starts to panic, but it only takes him a second or two to realise who it is. He recognises that stump, as Ser Jaime swims quite adeptly towards the Maid.

He hauls himself up, fighting the force of the water, onto the scoured rocks beside her.

They do not touch, but they do speak.

Pod understands, suddenly, that they appear physically well matched, to him.

She is bigger, yes, but not by so very much, and certainly not in a way he would define as ridiculous.

In fact, she had looked womanly enough on her own. It seems to him that it is all merely a matter of scale.

He watches as their conversation ends, and she steps away, dropping back into the water to swim.

She moves powerfully through the water, and it is only a few seconds before Ser Jaime joins her.

They do not touch, but plough through the surface of the pool with grace, until it descends into the inevitable competition, which she wins.

Pod is not very far away when they end up simply washing in waist deep waters, a few feet apart.

They have done this so many times before that it is almost unremarkable, but suddenly Jaime says something that makes it just the opposite of that.

Pod doesn’t know if it is arrogance, bravado, or sheer hope. But his voice is low, full of a tenderness that Pod can hardly bear to overhear, but can’t stop listening to.

“I would give you pleasure, my Lady. I would give you pleasure you have never known.”

The Maid of Tarth ceases moving, dropping her arms slowly and becoming still, for a short while.

Then she moves, again. She is swift, with but a couple of long, underwater strides taking her to her destination. She stops, suddenly, in front of him. Her breathing is rapid.

There is barely a hand’s breadth between them, but they do not touch each other.

Her eventual answer is sharp and surprising. “What makes you think that I have never known pleasure?”

The Kingslayer gasps.

Her voice is soft, but sure. “I am a maid, Ser Jaime.” She smiles gently, clearly nervous, yet with a knowing edge.

“But I am also a woman grown.” She lifts her sword hand in between their faces, wriggling certain fingers as a sign of her knowledge of her own body. His shoulders start to heave in response, his own breath coming so very fast.

When she speaks again, her tone is husky with what seems to be want.

“I have no doubt that you could pleasure me, but I am not entirely lacking.”

When he finally replies, his voice is desperate with hope. And with agony. “Tell me that you think of me?”

There are a few slow, heartbeats, it feels, before she answers him. When she does, she is pained.

“You _know_ I do.”

Still they do not touch.

Pod can’t look away and he hates himself for it. These moments feel like they are being caught in amber. They are not for him to see. But he is caught in them, too.

He finds it heartbreaking. He has seen the care that each has given the other, when one of them is troubled in sleep, over the course of nearly a decade. Hair stroked, bodies clasped close, words whispered softly in the night. Yet when they are awake, there can be nothing for them.

It is a harsh, barren thing.

And so they stand there, sharing rasping breaths.

Their eyes are simply locked in need.

It goes on for so long that Pod suddenly has to walk away, but the sound of him rising to his feet is all that is needed to break this spell.

She does not look away from her captive knight, but her shoulders slump and she sounds defeated. “I think we should leave soon.”

Even from here, Pod can see the jaw of the Kingslayer twitching in frustration. “Of course, my Lady.”

Within minutes, they are dressed, and following Pod back along the path to Evenfall.

All evidence of their emotions are gone. He is the quiet, unworthy knight. She is the dignified Evenstar, once more.

But Pod feels a little wiser, now.

He knows the restrictions that have been placed upon them. Lolla has often been ferociously angry about the matter.

He is not too happy about it, either, but now he can appreciate how things are. And admire them both for it.

Ser Jaime will drag both of them to the brink of any boundary set for them. It is his way. It is the Lady Brienne that will stop them from crossing it. That is hers.


	8. The Evenstar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The war is over. Some of them hadn’t thought that they would outlive it. And yet...
> 
>   
> Banner by [Ro Nordmann](http://ro-little-shop-of-wonders.tumblr.com)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I've checked my pockets. They're empty. So no, I don't own it.

CHAPTER SEVEN: THE EVENSTAR

 

The last part of Evenfall Hall to be outwardly repaired is the South Tower. Its replacement is a peculiar construction; much lower and squatter than the original, with four smaller beacons replacing the original one, spaced equally around the edges of a large and round, slightly convex, stone roof.

Her insistence on these oddities had caused many rifts with the stonemasons, yet the only major alteration she would agree to was the addition of small drainage holes to channel away any collected rainwater. Oddly, given her generally good grasp of practicality, she hadn’t considered the rain.

It is a great deal smaller on the inside than the original South Tower, despite being broader. The strangeness of the roof requires massively strong vaulting to support it.

They had all thought her quite touched by madness.

Six moons after the main structure is complete, though, her reasoning becomes clear.

Early on a spring evening, when the air is cooling and the fruit trees far below are bedecked in blossoms, gliding dark wings bring Drogon to Tarth.

He heads straight for the warmth of the newly lit beacons, and settles happily into the nest made for him.

There is a quite understandable state of panic throughout the castle (and also, she is sure, in the town below) but as everybody else dives for cover she calmly walks across the courtyard to the small livestock pen.

Within minutes, she has hauled a newly slaughtered sheep up the Beacon Steps that spiral up the outside of the tower, and is throwing it to her visitor.

“Hello, Drogon,” she says, calmly. “Here is your sheep.”

He seems pleased, though she really cannot tell if this is truly so. Dragons are quite inscrutable.

At least he does not burn her.

Once he has eaten her offering, he promptly falls asleep, basking in the warmth of the fires that surround him.

When she returns to the Great Hall, Jaime is amongst the crowd of anxious people waiting for her.

“You made a nice bed for a _dragon_?” he hisses at her, quietly, when she reaches his side.

“I thought it better that he be comfortable and well-fed, rather than eating the people of Tarth.”

He doesn’t argue her point. “I hope he doesn’t get too comfortable. It would be unfortunate if he chose to stay.”

She shakes her head. “He won’t. The Queen told me it is not his way.”

Her knight grimaces. “I hope you don’t mind if, for the duration of his visit, I remain indoors.”

She glances at him mildly. “Given your history with him, I think that would be wise, Ser Jaime.”

This night and the following day are tiring for her, as she alone keeps the beacons lit and drags up sheep for her guest.

Then, in an act of extreme bravery, dear Pod follows her up the Beacon Stairs. He insists he does so. As they reach the roofline, he whispers to her. “Do you say anything to him?”

She nods. “Hello, Drogon. Here is your sheep.”

They both step up onto the roof and this time it Ser Podrick Payne of the House of Tarth that offers Drogon his meal, with the same words.

He remains unharmed, though he is shaken into deathly pallor when the dragon seems to sniff at him.

By the third evening of this most unusual visit, Pod feels confident enough around Drogon to allow Brienne some time to sleep.

The dragon leaves after a stay of four and a half days.

In that time, Brienne has collected another name to add to her vast collection.

The Shepherdess of Tarth.

She does not know where it comes from, but strongly suspects its source might be a man who was once a lion.

/-/-/-/-/

It is an utterly joyous occasion, she thinks, as she changes out of her formal armour.

Thanks to the Dornishfolk who have come to train on Tarth, Brienne is at least spared the indignity of wearing a dress to the feast. She pulls on one of her plain cotton shirts, tucking it into a pair of soft, loose, flowing trews that had recently been brought to her as a nameday gift by one of their fierce warrior women. They are Tarthian blue, naturally.

In truth, another part of the gift was a matching shirt, of sorts, but Brienne has found she does not have the necessary bravery to be so...revealing. The Dornish are fond of sheer clothing, it seems.

She is not.

After she straps Oathkeeper back around her waist, she walks towards the feast, tying her hair back at the nape of her neck. She no longer feels the need to hide her face. She is what she is. It is mere inches longer than it once was, and she is content to tell herself that she has only changed it at all to stop her hair falling into her eyes whilst she is sparring. That it has nothing to do with the fact that a certain knight of her acquaintance had once shouted at her, during battle, “If I don’t get through this, wench, I just want you to know that your ears are quite lovely!”

She stops as she finds herself in the peculiar position of recalling a memory of a bloody engagement with fondness. He had whirled away from her, into the maul; she had remained still, shocked into immobility by a poor compliment. But then he was in front of her again, grinning through spattered blood. “I do plan on getting through this, though. So should you. Bring your ears. And your eyes, if that isn’t too much to ask.”

He’d pulled at her shield with his golden hand, locking it to his cuirass, and hauled her back into the maelstrom.

They fought on, together.

And, eventually, her hair grew. Just a little.

She moves on to the Great Hall, smiling all the way, finding an unusual and rare enjoyment in the feel of soft fabric brushing over the tops her feet.

As she joins the revellers, her eyes automatically seek him out. She has long since given up fighting the urge to do so, whenever she nears him. It is quicker to just let it happen and move along.

Jaime is in a corner, speaking to the groom when he glances her way. His head tilts, appraisingly, before he turns back to his conversation.

She walks towards the High Table. It feels strange seeing one here, again. She has refused to allow one to be used, on a daily basis, in the hope that ranks would mingle and ideas be exchanged more freely.

As she arrives back at her seat, the bride bundles into her, hugging her about her waist.

After a long and sometimes fractious (mostly on her part) friendship became something deeper, Fredrick and Lolla have wed.

“Hello, Lady Lolla Redbeard.”

Dark eyes look up from under her furrowed brow. “Don’t you be ‘ladying’ me, Enni. Come, try the pork with apple. It’s very good.”

They sit down and Lolla chatters away endlessly and excitedly about her day, which has apparently been far better than her first wedding, many years ago. Both she and Fredrick were long since widowed. Brienne picks at the food on her plate. As much as she loves Lolla, the Hall is currently stuffed full of things she can’t have. Marriage. Some scattered examples of intimacy. _Him_. She attempts to lighten the mood by introducing a subject close to her dear friend’s heart, even if it is far from hers.

“I suppose you are looking forward to the bedding?” she asks, dryly.

“Yes,” Lolla says, wrinkling her nose. “Though of course, I’ve been bedding him for years.”

Brienne looks at her in astonishment, which earns her a light slap to her right hand. “Don’t be such a prude, Enni. If you had even a half tankard full of common sense you’d have been bedding your own one-handed Ser for a very long time, yourself.”

“Lolla!”

She glances behind the bride’s chair and almost dies on the spot. Lolla is oblivious. “Really, little one, there are so many things you can _do_ that will never end up with a child in your belly. You’re missing out. I think you...”

“I think you should stop interfering, my dear heart, and come to dance with me,” Fredrick interrupts lightly, jerking his head awkwardly to indicate that they are not alone. Lolla leans back in her chair, looking upwards, to find Ser Jaime of Tarth bending nonchalantly over the carved wooden panel behind her, his eyebrows raised. “Hello, Lolla,” he grins.

The little woman leaps to her feet, grimacing apologetically at Brienne. “I have to go and dance with my new husband. He wishes it,” she says unconvincingly, dragging Fredrick away.

Brienne puts her head in her hands.

“Well, that was a surprisingly girlish chat,” Jaime utters as he moves to his own seat. It is, as ever, to her left.

“Do stop,” she says from behind her fingers.

She hears low laughter from him. “Of course.” He pauses. “Would you like to dance?”

She shakes her head and lifts her face towards him with sadness. “The Evenstar doesn’t marry, or dally, or dance.”

He nods. “I don’t suppose disgraced knights do, either. Certainly not this one.” He seems lost in thought for a moment. Then he leans towards her, speaking seriously. “I would ask one thing of you, though.”

“Go on.”

A slow smile spreads across his face. “Please, wench. Never even attempt to wear a dress again. Your legs may be a little overlarge for the tastes of some, but they go on for _days_. It seems a pity to hide them under acres of skirt.”

She rolls her eyes, even as her heart skips. “They are just legs. You have seen them before, if I recall.”

“Yes. I have. But they are _your_ legs.” For a moment, he pins her with a darkened gaze. “And they are promisingly long.”

She looks away from him, even though she knows he will see her blush, anyway.

They end up watching the merriment in silence, a step removed from everyone else.

There is dance after dance and she finds her eyes drawn more and more to the newlyweds. They are an odd looking pair, but they are clearly deeply in love. They whirl about with abandon, constantly kissing and caressing each other with only the minimum of modesty.

She is so happy for them, for she loves them both, but a small part of her mind feels a streak of jealously at their freedom. She glances at Jaime and knows immediately that his feelings are the same as hers.

She will admit, to herself at least, that after he has been troubled in sleep in recent years, when she has already quietened him, she has occasionally lightly rested her fingers over his hips. Nothing more. Never anything more. But she is now always haunted by the shape of them. Of him. Always wondering how it would feel to grasp him there, pulling him in, having him drive himself into her.

She remembers Fallsong. How could she ever forget it?

She is not quite so naive to think that at one stage or another, Jaime has not done, or thought, the very same thing. Though even now, in truth, she still cannot quite believe herself woman enough for him.

The music ends, pulling her out of her reverie. Finally, the bedding has arrived.

She will take no part in it, but Jaime rises to his feet as people gather at the far end of the Hall.

“You can be as dignified as you like, my Evenstar, but can you imagine how my reputation as a dark and dreadful knight would suffer if I didn't take part in a bedding?”

She smiles as he walks away, only to watch him turn back and place his elbows on the table before her. The look in his eyes is direct. “Let me know if you ever find that half tankard. I'm thirsty.”

Then he is gone and her mind is scattered.

She leaves the Great Hall shortly after, simply wanting to shut herself away.

He will not let her.

She enters her chamber to find him a dark shadow, sat upon her bed, his legs stretched out before him.

There is only moonlight, but she hears the smile in his voice. “I _knew_ you would escape during the bedding.”

She sighs, wearily. “I have no tankard, Jaime.”

“This isn’t about my thirst.” He stands and even in the half-light, she sees him change, slipping into a formality that was trained into him as a child, so long ago. His hand reaches out, gracefully.

“My Lady Brienne, would you care to dance?”

She replies in an equally formal manner. “Yes, Ser Jaime. I would be honoured.”

He steps towards her.

There is little room or light and the strains of music rising up from the Great Hall are faint. It doesn’t matter. It is perfect. She spends a few moments fearing her own feet before she realises that no toes will be crushed, here. They know each other too well, the movement of their bodies a simple ebb and flow of action and reaction that comes, unbidden, to them both.

They dance forever and for no time at all.

Their hands finally drop away from one another, silently, as if by mutual consent, and he steps back and bows exquisitely. “Thank you, my Lady Brienne. Good night.”

He leaves her chamber quietly, leaving her with her eyes wide and her heart full.

This is only the first time they dance. It is not the last.

A pattern emerges that is set for nearly five moons. Almost every day, in the light, they spar. They dance in the dark come night-time, Jaime softly humming nameless melodies as they do so.

/-/-/-/-/

Then the raven comes.

It throws her into turmoil, because everything will now be changed, once more.

She composes herself and throws her cloak about her shoulders, drawing herself up to her full height as she heads towards the courtyard; a tall, bleak avalanche, advancing fast, forging her way towards Ser Jaime. She must, for now, be publicly nothing other than the Evenstar. More so than ever. For him, and for herself. Too much evidence of emotion could endanger them both.

For he is about to be broken.

She marches straight in between Ser Jaime and a young hopeful from Dragonstone, as they hurriedly raise their swords.

“Ser Jaime. You will come with me.”

Her demeanour must be cold indeed, as he instantly looks alarmed and answers swiftly. “Of course, my Lady.”

She stalks through the corridors of Evenfall at speed, refusing to speak whilst they might be seen by anyone else. By the time they reach his chamber, he looks quite terrified. He is right to be.

As soon as the door is closed, her shoulders slump and she speaks with care. “Please, Jaime, be seated.”

He shakes his head slowly, his eyes wide with apprehension.

She opens her hand and tries to flatten the parchment she has inadvertently crumpled in her fist.

As she holds it out to him, her hand is shaking.

“I am sorry, Jaime. So very sorry.”

The noise heard roiling forth from the private chamber of the Kingslayer stops movement through much of this high place. It is loud, piercing, chilling. It is utterly shocking. It is the sound of a desperately wounded animal.

And it is far worse in his presence. Brienne watches him fall to his knees, wrapping his arms about himself; rocking back and forth as he roars out his grief.

His sister is dead. His only lover. The mother of his children.

/-/-/-/-/

Pod enters and moves to her side, leaning down to whisper in her ear.

“He still has not eaten. He will not speak. I think he intends to die.”

It has been a week since she’d left his chamber, after trying and failing to comfort Jaime, only to return and find her way to him closed.

“Is his door unlocked?”

“His door? Yes, Ser Lady. I left it so.”

She has no choice now, and it hurts her heart.

The party from Astapor has almost concluded its business with her, anyway.

She speaks to them. “An internal matter has arisen. I must deal with it now. I hope you are not offended if I leave Ser Kholo and Ser Kyron with you, to hammer out the details of this agreement? They are honoured Knights of the House of Tarth, and are fully aware of the cares your children will need. I should return within the hour.”

Her guests haltingly agree, clearly confused by this break in protocol.

Brienne doesn’t care.

In moments, she is striding along with real purpose. Ser Podrick is almost running to keep up with her, even though he is no longer anywhere near to short. She hands him her gauntlets and asks him to wait outside Jaime’s chamber.

She goes in and kneels next to his bed as quietly as she can, considering she is wearing her blue armour. Even as the edges of her greaves cut into her shins, making her wince, her cloak settles around her and she thinks it must look like she is praying.

An Evenstar is praying for her Knight.

He is pale. Hollow, he does not even react to her arrival, his gaze focussed anywhere but here.

She is scared.

She has to fight one mighty grief with another. Their unspoken grief. The grief that shackles them together. The thing that they saw. The action he took.

Not his least honourable act. Quite the opposite. But the one that still blankets him in darkness whenever he sleeps.

They have never talked of it, even in the hours and days that immediately followed, because it hurts too much. She must speak of it now, even though it will cause them both such pain.

The reason that he became the Tamer of the North, and she the Maid That Roared.

It was the very worst moment they had shared, in all the years of war.

Maimings, be damned.

Their initial flight from King’s Landing, as it fell to the Dragon Queen, had been necessarily swift and unplanned; their two stolen mounts heading north almost at their own behest. It would be two days before they would even realise the direction in which they were headed; the ever increasing snows blurring the landscape they travelled through. It would be weeks before the roadside encounter that changed them utterly, forging them from exhausted escapees, simply running, into an implacable force that would eventually prove brutally effective during the Long Night.

In truth, their silent agreement to go and fight at The Wall had not been made to seek clemency or glory. She is sure that such thoughts never entered either of their minds, at any point.

They did not travel so far to battle the horrors of the North.

They did so to fight Winter, itself.

She begins. “I lied to your brother, Jaime. I _lied_ to him.” That catches his attention. Nothing moves but his eyes, but he is now looking at her. She looks back, unflinchingly. “I told him that your noblest act was the killing of a king, but we both know that this is not true. _It was the girl.”_

He recoils in horror, his voice rough from lack of use. “Why would you say this when...”

“...When you grieve for your sister? When I know the girl is the one you visit most, when you close your eyes to sleep? Because you are strong, Jaime. I must make you see it.” Her interruption is sharp, though it softens as her words spill out.

She begins a strange, oddly broken narrative of what she recalls of that day.

“How old do you think she was? Four, perhaps five? I remember her eyes were listless. I remember her blackened skin. Her limbs. Her ears, her nose. Even her lips and her chin. The cold had burned her so badly. I remember her chest rattling.”

His voice is husky and distant, lost in the past. “She was so small.”

“Yes, she was. And she was dying. You knelt next to her. I went searching through the snowdrifts, for anyone, anybody nearby. I was so angry. There was no-one. She had no-one. She was alone. I think she had been _abandoned_ there. To die.” She can hear the note of horrified disbelief colouring her words. It is fresh and undimmed by the passage of years.

He is still right there, in those bleak moments. She can see it. “I could not touch her. It only brought her pain.”

“Yes. And I would have watched her suffer on for her last hours.” She pauses, steeling herself. “You couldn’t. You simply couldn’t. I watched you as you fought with yourself. But then you did it. I don’t think she even felt your dagger, Jaime. At her end, you made it quick.”

She watches as he glares at his lone hand, the one that bore his blade that day, with such feral contempt it is as if he wishes it were gone, too.

She continues. “I was numb. I couldn’t think. But when you were sure she had passed, you picked her up and cradled her. Gently. So gently. I remember you whispering ‘I’m sorry’ to her, so many times, as you rocked her. You cried, Jaime. Gods, you cried. We both did.”

They are both crying now.

These are silent tears, because there is no noise that can fully realise the deep, raw pain these memories cause them. The only sound is the tip-tapping of small drops of grief that fall from Brienne’s face and land on her armour.

“You held us both.” His tone is laced with a questioning wonder, as if, in his own despair, he had entirely forgotten it.

“I did.”

His eyes speak of thanks, even as they weep.

She nods in sad acknowledgement. “We couldn’t bury her. The ground was too hard. So that was where you left your white cloak, for the very last time. Wrapped around her, because you didn’t want her to be cold anymore.”

For long moments, neither of them can speak. It is too much.

He breaks the silence. He is nothing but shame, in this moment. “Brienne. I killed a _child_.”

She is certain, through her tears. “You did _not_. You merely delivered her to the Seven. She had already been sent to them.” Of this she is sure.

“That isn’t so.” His voice is agony.

She is firm. “It is. You know it is. She was far beyond saving. You ended her suffering. Winter had already taken her.”

“Why are we speaking of this? Why now?”

Brienne knows she is still crying. She can hear it on her metal clothes. She breathes in deeply, marshalling herself. This is what she has come to say.

“Because I have seen you battle wights and wolves and even a dragon, Jaime. But I have never seen you stronger than you were on that day. Stronger than monsters. Stronger than Winter. Stronger even than grief, I think.”

He closes his eyes for a few moments in understanding, as she ends on a broken whisper.

“Please come back to me.”

She reaches out across the blankets and lightly tangles the fingers of her right hand with those of his left.

She strokes his fingers as if they are fragile things, even though she knows far better. She does not know for how long. It doesn’t matter. Then, as she finally moves to break the contact, he grasps her hand with a sudden firmness and need.

He doesn’t need to speak, for Brienne to know what he is saying to her.

_Pull me back. I beg you. Help me._

She considers his hand; the familiar warmth of it that now feels so strange next to her own, purely because she can see them touching. In the light of day, they have avoided the simple act of choosing to hold hands for so very long. Since their very first day on Tarth.

Then she lifts the hand of this man towards her, his eyes widening as she lowers her head to softly brush her dry lips across his callused knuckles.

Her first kiss.

She is still crying when she gently places his hand back down. As is he.

For long moments, they look at each other, their eyes naked, yet clothed in feeling.

“I am here, Jaime. Even when I am not. And I will wait for you. Always. I swear it.”

He almost smiles, bitterly. Almost. “Another oath, Brienne?”

She, however, is a study in seriousness, as her well of tears finally begins to run dry. “My final oath.” She pauses, before telling him gently, “I saved it for you.”

He looks at her, clearly stunned.

She shrugs, shyly and awkwardly in her armour.

They speak no more, simply regarding each other openly and with care.

The silence around them is a blanket they grasp on to, wanting nothing more than to have it absorb their pains and lift their burdens.

They are still forever and for no time at all.

Eventually, Brienne notices the shifting light coming through the window. Shadows are lengthening and the day is beginning to fade.

She has been here for far longer than she had anticipated.

Her voice is soft. “I will be in the Great Hall. There is a party from Astapor waiting. Send Pod, if you need me. If not, I will return at nightfall.”

Then she pulls herself up to her feet, grimacing at the sharp pain in her shins. She is leaning down, gingerly adjusting her greaves, when he speaks.

“I often wonder what her name was.”

“Shara.” The answer spills out of her without thought. “I have thought of her as Shara for years.”

She rises to her full height. “Perhaps it is wrong of me to have done so, but I couldn’t leave her nameless.”

She watches his lips move, though he does not make a sound.

_Shara. Shara. Shara._

He looks at her with great warmth. “Thank you for giving her a name, Brienne.”

She nods and leaves, quietly closing the door behind her.

Her last glance at him sees his lips moving silently, once more.

_Shara._

He is back by her side, the next morning. Though Jaime, himself, does not return until later.

/-/-/-/-/

She sometimes finds his grieving difficult to bear.

She can cope with the cold efficiency that overwhelms him in the practice yards, but there are other times, when the tact and delicacy she lacks is required, that she struggles.

On those evenings when they can sit alone, he often speaks of Cersei.

She does not know how to even approach the subject of his loss, so she merely listens.

At first they cut her keenly, his gentle words of beauty and love and womanliness.

She thinks he means to hurt her, in his sadness.

But as time goes on she realises the truth of the matter. Jaime speaks to her because there is simply nobody else he can share this part of his life with. So she endures the painfully intimate details that spill out of him, seemingly out of his control.

The love between two children, that grew, changed and became all-consuming. The boy who dreamed of being a knight in the Age of Heroes. The girl who ached for her mother, yearned for the acceptance of her father, and shone like sunlight. So many trysts, most of them fevered, hurried, and all of them hidden. The boy watching the girl marry another. The girl finding the marriage bed a cold and unwelcoming place.

Jaime tells her everything. From the feel of Cersei’s waist under his fingers to the denial of his own fatherhood, everything is laid bare in front of her.

Brienne finds it deeply uncomfortable, but also enlightening. The depth of his devotion to Cersei had been boundless, until he had grown to question not her, but himself.

Each little moment is spoken of only once and Brienne never passes judgement. Finally she understands what he is doing, even if he does not.

It is as if each recollection, good or ill, is being lifted and gently examined before being wrapped carefully to be stored away inside, forever. In a way, Brienne thinks it very much an infinitely more complex version of a young man or woman, packing away the treasures of childhood for safekeeping.

She may not have loved Cersei, but she can help him carry his memories of her.

When his well of remembrance has almost run dry, Jaime surprises her.

“I think she was jealous of you.”

Brienne maintains her composure, although the very thought that the achingly beautiful queen had found her anything other than an abomination is beyond belief. It is farcical.

It is the first time, during this whole process, that she has spoken of his sister. She is blunt. “Cersei scorned me, Jaime. After I returned you, I was only in King’s Landing for a week, and she humiliated me at every opportunity.”

Jaime nods. “Perhaps so, but only because she wanted to _be_ you. She was always so bitter that women weren’t permitted to bear a sword in their own defence. It was one of the things guaranteed to stoke her ire. I can’t imagine her shock when she encountered you.”

“That is not my fault.”

He agrees without hesitation. “Of course not. I simply think that seeing you made her deeply unhappy that she was never given the choice.”

It is curious idea. “Would she have chosen our path?”

“Maybe. She would have been a terrible knight, though.” He grins, wryly. “She never could control her anger.”

Brienne smiles. Jaime is coming back to her.

/-/-/-/-/

It is seven moons after the raven before her father’s bones can finally be reinterred underneath the new South Tower. The construction of tombs, deep under the dragons nest, had been a low priority when the living still needed aid.

It is a simple ceremony, attended by many of the original inhabitants of Tarth, and some of the new. Her father had been a cheerful, loving man; generous, kind and just. He is still very much missed by some. She knows she is a much sterner ruler than he. It is a necessity, purely because she is a woman. Still, she strives for some of her father’s better qualities, every day.

She does not weep until the stone lid scrapes into place. It is a dreadful noise, grating and final as her father is sealed away from her forever.

It is the silence that follows that hurts the most, because for her, it is not silent. She is sure she can really hear the click-clacking of wooden swords, as she remembers playing with her father in the courtyard, when she was very young.

Her tears fall as she rests her fingers on the cold stone. She feels awful as she looks at the plainness of her father’s final resting place. There will be no effigy here. No images of her father survived the Winter War and for a moment, she curses the fact that the only artistry in her fingers makes death. There is just an inscription to mark him.

LORD SELWYN TARTH

THE FIRST EVENSTAR

She listens as people softly walk away, drifting off to continue their lives. She holds on to her sadness for a little longer, wanting to remember her love for her father.

Then she gathers herself. She has one more thing to do, in this dark place.

She turns to Ser Jaime, stood by her left shoulder, as he ever is. “You will remain,” she whispers.

He dips his head in assent, before looking up at her, his eyes full of concern.

She is equally concerned for him. She hopes she has not made a mistake.

She looks at Pod and nods. Her dear boy moves to gently clear the crypt of the few remaining mourners.

She and her knight wait, unmoving.

Pod is the last to leave them, his familiarly heavy footsteps calling out from the stairs.

She drops her hand from her father’s tomb, almost flinching at the loss of contact. Then she turns to Jaime. “There is something here you must see.”

He appears confused, but says, “As you wish, my Lady.”

It is a mere handful of steps, past the place where she will eventually lie, that a small, unremarkable stone is set into the wall. It is as dark as the walls around it. It is unobtrusive.

The words carved into this surface are almost tiny, but they are deep. They will remain for the ages.

SHARA

A YOUNG CHILD

PERISHED ON THE NORTHERN KINGSROAD

DURING THE WINTER WAR

BEFORE THE BATTLE OF THE WALL

Jaime falls to his knees before this memorial, his breath suddenly rasping in his throat.

Brienne is transfixed. And terrified. She doesn’t want to _hurt_ him.

She watches as he reaches up to the little tablet, running his fingers over the letters, almost as if he is checking that they are real. He turns his head towards her slowly, his eyes glassy and his voice strained. “Thank you.”

The fear in her unclenches its grip. “It is important that we remember her. It is just.”

“Yes,” he says. He turns back to the memorial, touching it once more.

Brienne knows she has done right thing.

There are other things she can’t know.

Ser Jaime of Tarth will silently kneel before this tiny memorial, for a whole day of every year, for the rest of his life. On this day. Over the years, others will start to join him in his quiet vigil. They will never ask why he is there. They will just know it must be done.

And even when he is long dead, when he is become nothing but dry bones and uncertain history, ‘Shara’s Day’ will be a yearly Tarthian custom, held to celebrate the children that live, and remember those who have been lost.

/-/-/-/-/

Jaime, in his turn, listens to Brienne's grief, though the precious memories she carefully stows away are much happier than many of those he had shared.

He shares her other, bleaker burdens, too. When they arise, she is not alone in the darkness.

Time moves ever on and together, they make Dragons.

The practice yards are full. Lolla now has a dozen weavers working with her, constantly producing fine blue cloaks.

Overhead, the sun blazes.

But the warriors of the House of Tarth never forget that Winter is coming. And that they are forged to fight it.

/-/-/-/-/

Jaime spits out his wine and coughs, before gaping at her in sheer incredulity.

“What do you mean; I am not the only Lannister to have seen you naked?”

He sounds incensed and she has to work very hard to keep a straight face. She tries to make her reply seem as offhanded as possible. “Well, there was that time with Tyrion...”

He leaps to his feet. “Tyrion? _Tyrion?”_ Suddenly is standing over, his face awash in horror.

“What did he _do_ to you?”

She can hold herself together no more, laughing as she says, “The Queen decided to learn of our journey by reading my skin. Your brother was witness to it.”

Jaime isn’t happy. “And he _agreed_ to be a part of this?”

She holds up a hand to calm him. “Jaime, he knew as little of it as I. It was nothing. I...”

“It was not _nothing_.”

She had not meant to cause him distress. “Well, no, it was painfully embarrassing. But a couple of people gawping at my ugly hide for a few minutes helped to save yours. I think it was worth it.”

He sits back down, looking at her seriously. “Thank you, my Lady. Though I would prefer it if you stopped referring to your own hide as ugly.”

Her good humour drains away. “Long seen truths should not be denied.”

He speaks softly.

“ _I_ do not see it.”

They sit in silence, his eyes now as warm as the sudden flush on her skin.

But then he chuckles. “I am rather glad we stopped keeping tally of the times we’ve saved one another back in the Riverlands.”

“I would still be ahead,” Brienne replies, with certainty.

“You would not,” he scoffs, narrowing his eyes. “On second thoughts, I think the fact that you were brazenly naked in front of two of the most respected people in Westeros is entirely your own doing.”

She laughs softly at the thought of Tyrion being respected. She respects him a great deal, but hardly thinks that view widely held, even now. “Oh?”

“Well, I certainly don’t think it is my fault that you decided to collect scarring from all of the fearsome beasts of Westeros.”

She stares at him, flatly.

He shrugs. “If you will throw yourself into a fight with a wolf...”

Her interruption is pointed. “If I remember, I was asleep and you were supposed to be on watch.”

She sees him consider his position, before he reaches over into the fruit bowl. He inspects his random selection, before offering it to her, with a disingenuous smile. “Would you like some grapes?”

/-/-/-/-/

She slumps down next to him in the courtyard, at the very place where they had huddled together during their first night on Tarth. She is now panting, though, and her face is sticky with sweat, not tears.

“Daran is about ready for his cloak, I think.” She rolls her left shoulder, grimacing. “He hits like a landslide.”

He starts to unstrap his hand as he asks, “Any real damage?”

She shakes her head. “No. I just feel _old_.”

A laugh rumbles in his chest. “Hardly. I still had a year or two of flouncing around Westeros with the luxury of my right hand, at your age.”

“I can’t imagine you flouncing.”

“Oh, I did. I flounced heroically.”

She snorts at him. “You did not.”

He grins as he starts to twist his Golden Hand away from his stump. “Anyway, I would also consider Anara for a blue cloak. She’s young, but has a sharp tactical mind.”

“Agreed.”

His false hand comes away and as he places it down between them, Brienne looks at the protective leather band laced to his forearm underneath with some concern. It is old and patched, though the repairs seem neat enough. Very neat, in fact.

She sighs. “Jaime, you can have a new vambrace any time you like. You don’t have to get Lolla to fix this one.”

He shrugs. “She doesn’t mind and I don’t want a new one.”

“It cannot be comfortable. You are entitled to the best equipment.”

“I don’t care.” He shifts uncomfortably and speaks so as not to be overheard. “It is the one you made for me. Well, some of it is.”

She is stunned. “But I made that on our third day here.”

She had. Jaime had thrown himself into the reconstruction efforts immediately and without any thought of allowing himself to do less than the two-handed men around him. This naturally meant that within a day or so, his stump had been a mess of bleeding scrapes and scratches.

She’d been firm with him, glaring and chastising him for his foolishness even as her fingers dressed his arm with care. She then stomped off to Kholo’s initial stabling area, grabbing a black saddle of her own that she had found and brought down from the castle after the night in the courtyard. She had kept it in her chamber in the two years leading up to the war; it’d been broken in the fall that killed Cara, her favourite horse, somehow leaving Brienne herself only mildly concussed.

Kholo watched in horror as she took out her dagger and sliced a large square of leather from the saddle. She ignored him, just as she ignored Jaime’s snickering whilst she fashioned some basic protection for him, when he realised the source of the material. It was good leather. At least it wasn’t going to waste.

She shakes herself back to present.

“You still have it?”

He raises an eyebrow and nods before lifting his chin to indicate a match that is clearly coming to an end. “I think you’re up next. One of the younger Unsullied?”

She groans. “I think I prefer them all fresh and new. Before they become truly proficient.”

Jaime smiles. “When they are still scared of us?”

She pats the detached hand that rests between them, intending to get up, but then a thought occurs to her.

“I understand the golden hand, even if I find it ridiculous.” She ignores his mock outrage and carries on, mildly. “But did you never consider a lion’s paw? Not _now_ , of course. Maybe that of a bear? They have claws, if memory serves. So much better, in battle.” She swipes her hand at him, though her version of the roar of a bear is a bit girlish and disappointing.

_Never mind._

She hauls herself upright and ambles away, glancing back to see the famed and feared Ser Jaime of Tarth almost pouting down at his suddenly piss poor hand.

She laughs to herself. Treasured vambrace or not, it serves him right. A golden hand. _Honestly._

She rolls her eyes as she grabs a tourney sword.

/-/-/-/-/

She is called, unexpectedly, to King’s Landing.

This is not one of her regular, brief visits, which have been dotted through her time as the Evenstar. The message the raven had brought her had been all wrong.

The Dragon Queen has commanded her presence, with a company of a hundred Dragon Warriors.

She is nervous, yet cannot help but enjoy the almost festival like atmosphere at the dockside. It has become a strange tradition that members of the House of Tarth should both leave and arrive on the Sapphire Isle in full battledress. At first, she had thought it a pointless exercise, but there is a certain formality to it that her blue cloaks seem to enjoy. And removing all that metalwork will keep them occupied, for a good part of the sea crossing, as will putting it back on, at the other end.

It will definitely limit the amount of time they spend complaining, in any case.

She is happy to admit that her warrior children make a stirring sight as they gather to board the ships, albeit one that is not uniform. Early on, she had made the decision that each Knight would wear whatever arrangement of armour suited them and their fighting style best.

The Dothraki knights, therefore, wear minimal armour, eschewing maximum protection for increased speed and endurance, for both themselves and their horses.

Most of the Westerosi knights, on the other hand, are walking mountains of metal, made to be in the very heart of battle. The heavy machinery of war.

Some wear only protective leathers and others, none at all. These are probably her most deadly warriors. They are her knights of stealth. She recognises one who waves at her from the far end of the dock, the young woman’s dark brown plait bobbling about as she jumps up and down. The Evenstar waves back. It is a knight for whom she has real fondness and one who truly values her blue cloak.

In fact, the blue cloaks milling around are the only things that mark them out as one.

In Brienne’s eyes, this doesn’t matter.

They are all magnificent.

And they are all Dragons.

She turns to those being left behind.

Lolla scurries forward to hug her. “Be careful, Enni,” she whispers, tearfully. She looks down and notices, with a pang, that her dear friend’s hair is now entirely grey. Age is creeping up on all of them. “Give Fredrick my love, Lolla.” The resourceful Ser Fredrick has long since been her castellan and is busy with his endless duties.

Next, Ser Kyron bows to her formally. He has, over the years, developed into her best, if also her most bombastic, teacher of new warriors. He will continue to train those remaining here.

Last of all, there is Jaime. She can see the longing in him. He wants to come with her, to face whatever trials await her by her side, but his path ended here, a long time ago.

“You are now the Defender of Tarth, Ser Jaime,” she intones, solemnly. “Don’t lose my island while my back is turned. It will make me cross.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Besides, who would attack a school of war for gain?” he says mildly.

She grins. The day of his trial at King’s Landing seems so long ago, now.

“Good point. And stop throwing my own words back in my face.”

“Never.” He turns serious. “Be safe, my Lady Evenstar.”

She nods and turns away, but has taken only a few steps before he speaks again. “Think of me?”

She raises her sword hand, her fingers wiggling; to most of the people about just in a girlish wave.

“Always.”

Lolla shrieks in knowing delight and Brienne can hear Jaime telling her to be quiet, with no lack of humour himself, as she walks away.

/-/-/-/-/

She eats in the chamber she has been assigned whilst she is waiting to be called before the Dragon Queen. She doesn’t look up from her plate as she hears the door open. “Don’t they teach Lannister children how to knock?” Then she lifts her head.

His brow furrows in a clearly fake attempt to search his memory. “Not that I recall.” He smiles. “It is good to see you, Brienne.”

They have long since dropped the titles in private, in person and in writing, except when they are making a point. It makes conversation less cumbersome.

“And you, Tyrion. So. Why has she summoned me here?”

He takes the other chair and gazes at her, uneasily.

“The Riverlands are close to chaos, once more.”

She blanches and slams her eyes shut. The place of her maiming. Of _his_. Her heart thumps and she shakes her head, even as she hears Jaime’s voice in her mind. ‘Forget the bloody Riverlands, wench. Come home.’ She breathes in deeply, to calm herself, a small part of her wryly realising that Tyrion has seen her do this before.

When she opens her eyes again, he simply says, “I’m sorry.”

She looks at him without accusation. She knows he will have tried to prevent this. “Go on.”

“The re-emergence of the power of Tytos Blackwood since the Queen came to the throne brought some stability. But House Bracken has regrouped and is fighting back.”

She is composed, now. “House Bracken swore loyalty to your family, yes?”

He nods. “Yes. And they fell with us, too. The Blackwoods only swore to us after a protracted siege. Their recovery was much easier.”

“That must make journeying to visit your wife interesting,” she states.

He laughs. “You say interesting, I say bloody hindering dangerous. Either way, my route to the North becomes ever more circuitous.”

Here is the distraction she needs. The Riverlands can wait until the Queen. She smiles. “How are they?” She is ever fond of the Lady of Winterfell.

“Sansa is well. There is more affection between us than I could have hoped for. We do really _like_ one another. As for my dearest little Robb Stark, he is reassuringly...normal.”

Her smile widens. “Normality is a blessing few appreciate.”

They are both aware of this, so much more than most. “Yes. Though I fancy he may be a little cleverer than the average child, naturally.”

“Why name your first son a Stark?” The choice, made with the approval of the Daenerys, had caused a ripple of shock that had reached as far as Tarth, although Jaime’s reaction had been a simple shrug. There are, after all, still other Lannister males.

“Sansa did the hard work. It seemed just. If we are blessed with another, and I hope we will be, he’ll be a Lannister. Maybe. The Stark name is ancient and noble. It would be a shame if it were to disappear, left merely to exist in the dusty old books that only I seem to read.” His tone turns dry. “Besides, Northern folk are rather terrifying. If I didn’t allow it, they might throw me from the Wall.”

She agrees, lightly. “They might, at that.”

They fall silent and she knows what is coming.

Tyrion leans forward. “How is he?”

She grins. “Complaining that his current quarters have a terrible view.”

He is all amused disbelief. “I very much doubt that. Has anybody ever told you that you are an incompetent liar?”

“Only him.”

Another quiet moment.

Tyrion looks at the floor, as if in consideration, though his concern is clear. “Tell me, truly. How did he cope with the loss of our sister?”

Her reply is matter of fact. “Badly, at first. But I reminded him of a comparable grief, which he survived. It has been some time, now. He is much improved.”

“A similar loss? I did not know he had one.” She watches as his concern inevitably changes to curiosity. “In fact, I do not think it _possible_.”

“It was not similar, in any way. Just comparable in effect.”

She watches Tyrion examine her for any visual clue. A twitch. A flicker of muscle. Anything. His attempts are hopeless. He will find nothing. Her walls, when she needs them, are high these days.

He leans back, chuckling. “As ever, my Lady Brienne, you provide information but leave only questions.”

“None of which I will ever answer, _my Lord_ Tyrion.”

He drums the small table between them with his fingers, rattling her plate of bread and cheese.

“As time has gone on, I have begun to like you more and more. It is little wonder my brother is attempting to charm you with accusations of poor quality fibbing.”

Her lips twitch in amusement. “His charms, such as they are, lie elsewhere.”

“Really?” The little lion grins, wolfishly.

Her answer is coupled with a flat look that cuts through his leering tone. “Really.”

He sighs. “Dearest Brienne. You aren’t going to enlighten me on this matter at all, are you?”

“No.”

He grins again. “Can I at least call you ‘wench’?”

She grins back. “Never.”

/-/-/-/-/

She feels the absence of her Left Hand most keenly.

In his place, Ser Kholo becomes her second. Pod is by her side, as always, but his strange, self-appointed position as her Knight Squire means he will refuse command.

In truth, Kholo is the best choice. His knowledge of warfare far outstrips that of anybody else in the company and he is a supreme warrior. His dedication to the House of Tarth is absolute, and the Dragon Warriors at her back would ride into fire for him.

There were two hundred Dothraki and an equal number of Unsullied also at her disposal. Ser Kholo and the twelve other Dothraki knights alongside them had been the subject of an uncomfortable reception from the others of the Great Grass Sea. They had been mocked for their armour, told that it showed they were weak. It had not taken Kholo long to disabuse them of that notion. The number of Unsullied warriors is still two hundred, but the Dothraki now find themselves with two fewer.

Brienne and Kholo have learned to communicate easily over the years, in a unique mix of words from the Common Tongue and Dothraki, though apparently her Dothraki accent is dreadful. This often makes the eastern warrior laugh, even at the most inappropriate points in conversations.

Though as they ride into the Riverlands and approach the Inn at the Crossroads, he does not laugh. Finding herself growing somewhat agitated, albeit that she thinks she hides it well, she asks him to lead them for the next few miles, until they have passed the inn by. When she explains why she finds this place disturbing, his face becomes murderous, and she has to reassure him that Biter is very much dead, before he rides ahead alone to mete out his own, brutal sort of justice.

Instead, Kholo settles in next to her; a quiet and reassuring, if deadly, presence. For extra measure, he calls the flag-bearers up to flank them, obscuring this hated place from her line of vision as much as is possible. She is grateful for his efforts.

He will do the same on the return journey.

/-/-/-/-/

The Riverlands campaign is brief, yet effective.

Lord Tytos Blackwood has shown no ill-favour at a woman being placed in charge of the counterattacks and has been rewarded with a relatively easy return to security, with few losses amongst his own men.

Brienne finds him quite honourable. He has a sound tactical mind and shows intelligence and fairness in his dealings with others.

Their time in the Riverlands is surprisingly short, with only three engagements needed to contain House Bracken; two of which are mere scuffles and one set battle, which lasts less than an hour.

During the battle, she takes a strong blow to her chest, but it is not enough to slow her for long.

The hurt will come later. The only real moment of note is when Pod shouts at her in frustration, from her left. “Ser Lady! Stop trying to shield my sword arm! I am _not_ Ser Jaime!”

She winces at her potentially lethal lapse, even as she shouts back, “Sorry, Ser Podrick!”

It feels like it is over in moments; leaving Brienne, as a warrior, feeling frustrated and underused.

Though, as the Evenstar, she is pleased that all of her Dragons will return to Tarth, with only a few serious injuries to slow them.

/-/-/-/-/

She can see his eyes running over her, almost frantically, even as the ship pulls into dock.

She moves carefully, attempting to mask the pain still resident in her ribs.

At the end of the gangplank, Lolla is waiting. Brienne can’t help but flinch as she leans down for their now traditional hug, but is distracted by an urgent whisper. “I have never seen anyone as angry as he was, when he heard where you’d been sent. We even had to confine him, for a little while. He threatened to head back to the mainland to find you.” She pats Lolla on the back before moving to stand in front of her knight.

“Ser Jaime. What is the state of Tarth?”

“Defended. A landing party of pirates was repelled with no casualties. All is well.”

“Thank you, Ser. I reclaim the role of the Defender of Tarth.”

“It is yours. I return it, freely.”

His stance softens, but he does not look happy. He remains worryingly formal. “How went your campaigning?”

“Well enough, Ser. But it was not the same.” She smiles softly. “I was missing a hand.”

He remains stern, his eyes flicking down to the area of her injury. “I see you lifted your elbow too soon.”

She tries not to look too embarrassed. “It is a bad habit of mine, as you know.”

“You should get some rest. Welcome home, my Lady.”

Then he turns sharply and walks swiftly away.

She stares at the space where he was for long moments, before gathering herself to deal with the task at hand. There are ships to be unloaded.

She makes her way back to the first gangplank, only to be intercepted by Ser Kyron. “We have this all in hand, my Lady Brienne!” he says. “You must have your injury tended to.” He looks at her, quite pointedly, until she leaves for the long ascent to Evenfall Hall.

As she puts her foot on the first step, she is suddenly almost overcome by a sense of bone deep weariness. There is a tug at her elbow. It is dear Lolla.

“Come now, Enni. Let’s get you some rest.”

Her beloved second mother escorts her all the way up the endless stairs, then up some more and to her chamber, though she leaves Brienne at the door.

Jaime is waiting for her, and he is utterly changed from the coldly formal creature she had met on the dockside, far below.

Immediately, he is fiddling with the buckles on her armour, his features covered only in concern for her. They work together, and in a short time she is free of the steel that encases her.

Jaime discards the last piece and comes to stand in front of her, raising his hand to run it over her hair, her cheek, her shoulder.

“Are you well, Brienne?”

She is truly moved by his care. “A few cracked ribs from a war hammer, nothing more. They will be healed, soon enough.”

“Are you sure?”

She smiles at him. “Yes, Jaime. I’m fine. I’m sure I’ll be knocking you back into the dust in no time. I know you’ve probably missed it.”

He shakes his head. “It isn’t funny, Brienne. The Riverlands? Could my brother not stop this?”

“No. I saw him try. The Queen would not move on the matter. The Dragons were to go to the Riverlands, and I had to lead them.”

He looks confused. “Was she testing you? Testing my banishment?”

She shrugs. “You? Me? Our warriors? What does it matter? It is done. If it was a test, it is one we passed.” Her tone turns dry. “Though in your case, barely, I hear.”

He at least has the good grace to look a little ashamed of himself, momentarily. But then he raises his hand to her face, again, and his eyes turn soft.

“May I hold you, Brienne?”

She should say no, but she simply cannot, anymore. “Gently, if you must, Jaime.”

He steps into her, wrapping his handless arm about her uninjured side and resting his head on her shoulder. When he speaks, she can feel his words ghosting over her throat and the warmth of him suffuses her, entirely.

“I was so angry for you,” he whispers. “I was frantic. The Riverlands. The bloody Riverlands.”

She whispers too. “I’ve found I still think them terrifying, even in High Summer.”

/-/-/-/-/

Eight days later, after Maester Arth’s frustratingly well enforced period of inaction, she points her tourney sword at Ser Jaime of Tarth and asks him if he would care to dance.

It is an offer he can’t refuse.

As the familiar sound of running feet falls away once more, as their swords clash and sing, Brienne realises something that has eluded her through all these years of toil and struggle.

_It is good to be home._

/-/-/-/-/

She wakes first.

There are too, too many early mornings like this.

There have been so many early mornings like this that they now almost hurt.

Their night terrors often come attached with a later price, if the one doing the soothing falls into sleep.

It is a price paid in sheer frustration.

As she hauls herself up towards consciousness, she can already feel the warmth thrumming deep inside of her.

Her first thought is of his hardness, pressed high against her inner thigh. So close to her. So close.

Yet too far away.

Her leg is thrown over his hip and as her eyes open, she starts to lift it away, only for long, elegant fingers to grasp her thigh, pulling them even closer together, rubbing him against her smallclothes.

White heat flashes through her and she hears herself whimper in her need.

All she can do is lay there, her chest heaving, craving air, her whole body full of want, looking at Jaime.

Gods, he is still so beautiful. He is older, yes, but then so is she. And what he has so much of, she has always entirely lacked.

When he sleeps, he carries so much grace that it hurts her heart to see it, even as a gentle rocking of his hips makes her moan, softly.

His eyes flicker open and hers are caught by them.

Then he tilts the whole world in just a few short moments.

He kisses her.

It is a chaste thing, only the touching of one pair of lips to another, but as he calmly rests his head once more, she is shaking with the force of it.

Their darkened eyes are locked together.

His voice, when it comes, is slow, still heavy and deep with sleep. There is a languorous, hypnotic wistfulness to it. She thinks he knows he is speaking of a wish they share, most profoundly.

“I dreamt it was our wedding day.” His brow furrows a little, in his sleep-addled state. “I seem to have missed the best part, though. We were at the feast, but I had apparently decided to bypass the bedding entirely by dragging you straight from the Sept to our chambers. We must have gotten hungry, later on.”

He smiles. “So there we are, looking charmingly dishevelled, eating our fill at the feast, when you grab my hand and look at me. It is my turn to be dragged to the bedchamber. There are cat calls and whistles and I don’t care. Neither do you. As you pull me past my brother I turn to him and I am grinning like a smitten fourteen year old, I’m sure of it. And I say to him, ‘She can kill men with her thighs. I have the best wife.’”

Despite the thick haze of lust around them, she can quietly laugh at that. “You idiot, Jaime.”

“That is precisely how you reacted in the dream. Even in sleep, I know you so well. So I pull you tight against me and kiss you, in front of everyone and you make me so _hard_.” Almost involuntarily, his fingers tighten and his hips move forwards again. They both moan, this time, and the sound that he makes is the sweetest Brienne has ever heard.

She is burning for him.

His voice is huskier, now. “Nothing in the world has ever felt so right. I have never been so happy, in all of my waking life. I wish...”

Without thinking, she stops him talking with a kiss of her own. It is a replica of his; soft, not overlong, simply lips touching lips. Yet it is full of emotion.

“I wish it, too,” she whispers against his mouth.

She pulls her head slowly away and lays it back on the pillow.

Then she reaches down, covering the fingers gripping her thigh with her own.

His eyes become pained. He nods and drags his fingertips along her flesh before lifting them away, making her blood sing and her body arch into his; driving them together, one last dreadfully wonderful time, before they push each other away entirely, gasping.

She can barely pull herself up to her feet. “I will go,” she manages to say, as she straightens her sleeping shift.

He nods again, but through his boiling want he is still Jaime, albeit that his voice is wavering.

“Yes. Go, wench! I have an urgent matter to attend to, here.”

She glances back at him, sprawled out across his bed, as she leaves. “You are not the only one.”

She hears him groan at her deep, need roughened words.

She nearly stumbles back into her own chamber and falls to her knees, beside her bed.

She is praying for him, once more.

Her fingers are barely into her smallclothes before she can feel herself bucking against them, nearly uncontrollably.

She rubs at her own flesh almost viciously, needing this torture to end, if only for a little while.

It does not take long.

She weeps as she peaks, as she hoarsely cries out his name, as her free hand grasps the blankets on her bed in desperation.

She wants him so much.

/-/-/-/-/

It is still early when, after she has recovered herself somewhat, once she has washed and is dressed, she opens the door to her chamber to begin her day.

He is waiting for her, all lean nonchalance and knowing looks.

They walk along the corridors of Evenfall in silence, for a while.

Yet it cannot last. With Jaime, silence never lasts.

He slows to a stop and she turns to him. “My Lady, I must ask. Why didn’t we do that together?”

His quiet question stuns her. Could they? Should they? She isn’t sure and she knows why. She looks away from him, her cheeks aflame. “I might not be able to _stop_ ,” she gently admits.

He steps around her, back into her line of sight, not allowing her to evade him. It is a sudden glimpse of the Jaime of old, arrogant and beautiful and full of a kind of promise she had no means of understanding, back then. His eyes scorch her. “I wouldn’t want to stop, but I could.”

“I want to believe you.” It is a plea, a wish, a desire. She can see that he knows it.

His arrogance drops away like a leaf in Winter, leaving only his beauty and promise behind.

“When have I ever failed you?”

Everything falls into place in her mind.

“Half tankard,” she whispers, nodding as his eyes widen at those two, stupid words.

The smiles they exchange are new and joyous.

Yet when he speaks, his voice is gentle and serious. “Then I will see you this evening, my Lady.”

He leaves her then, and she breathes, as if for the first time.


	9. The Little Wolf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The war is over. Some of them hadn’t thought that they would outlive it. And yet...
> 
>   
> Banner by [Ro Nordmann](http://ro-little-shop-of-wonders.tumblr.com)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: not mine.

CHAPTER EIGHT: THE LITTLE WOLF

 

Her sister lets her leave Winterfell only begrudgingly.

Having lost their mother, father, Robb and young Rickon to the war, Sansa can hardly bear the thought of her leaving Winterfell again.

This is despite the fact that, for her own reasons, Arya had flatly and defiantly refused any attempts to make her marry. She had promised to ‘turn any bedding into a deading’ on no less than seven occasions, since her return. She wasn’t even sorry about it.

It was Bran that convinced her about the rightness of her chosen path, in his own changed and peculiar way. It had taken her some time to believe that the Godswood was an embodiment of her brother, that he could listen and even answer her. She doesn’t know if it is their shared blood, but she had then very quickly become adept at reading the movements of branches in the breeze and truly hearing the noises of wind blowing through leaves. He talked to her, and it wasn't long until she The Silent Girl became The Woman Who Talks to Trees.

It is not a name she is fond of, and it only gives her a further reason to leave. She believes she might be able to speak to Bran almost anywhere. Many of the other people of Winterfell simply believe her mad.

She finds a surprising champion in her sister’s husband.

The Lannister Lord kills Sansa’s opposition to her wants in but a few sentences, over an inexplicably poor and greasy supper of mutton stew and dumplings.

There may have been a certain amount of hostile glaring, when he finally decides to intervene.

“She will only go and do it anyway, my wife.”

Sansa frowns at him, though Arya can see that her sister already knows he is right. He reaches out and covers her hand with his, quite tenderly. “She is tiresomely good at choosing not to be found, when she wishes it. Brienne and Jaime will keep her as safe as they can, and it seems to be their area of expertise. You know this, better than most. It is going to happen. Best it is done with our permission, yes?” he smiles, wryly. “The last thing our family needs is another publicly laughable absconding issue.”

Arya tries desperately to keep a civil tongue in her head as the Lady of Winterfell runs her free hand over her heavily pregnant belly, deep in thought.

When she finally looks up again, Arya is struck by her older sister’s eyes. They are beautiful, even though they are luminous with unshed tears. “I just...I missed you, Arya,” she whispers. “For so long. I don’t want to miss you, again.”

Her sibling’s mind is changed and Arya rises to her feet, moving around the table to envelop Sansa in her arms. Her words fall out onto strands of rich, auburn hair. “Well, I won’t be going anywhere until our new Stark is born.”

/-/-/-/-/

She is waiting to board a ship at Storm’s End when she hears the news.

Cersei Lannister is dead.

How she died is a matter of wild speculation, with some saying she was murdered in her bed, only for others to laugh and say that she simply fell into her flagon and never climbed out of it.

Arya had always thought that the news of the former Queen’s death would fill her with joy, leaving her exultant. It does nothing of the sort. It leaves her feeling numb.

She doesn’t know if it is because she has seen so much death, or that everybody has, but she just mentally crosses Cersei from her list as she boards the ship to Tarth.

/-/-/-/-/

For her first five days on the Sapphire Isle, there is a strange tension in the air.

The spiteful mutterings of the word ‘Kingslayer’ that are thrown freely about by sailors at the dockside are heavily outweighed by concerned voices elsewhere, asking if anybody has seen Ser Jaime.

No-one has.

Some think that he has taken his own life. Others are sure that he has broken his banishment and is fled to the Mainland, to mourn at his sister’s side.

The senior knights of the House of Tarth are completely silent on the subject; the Evenstar most of all. She seems to stalk the entire island in a sombre and impenetrable mood, as Ser Podrick tries valiantly to keep pace at her side. She looks so intimidating, that not a single person will ask her about the missing knight.

The gossip becomes ever more fanciful.

On the fifth morning, Arya steps out of the tent she has been sharing with five other girls who have come here, hoping to become warriors. Perhaps it because she is far older than them or that she has more experience in this area, but she finds them all girlish and silly.

Most of them are huddled in a chattering group; blocking free movement between the tents for everybody else, she notices with a scowl. Then she hears what is being said.

“The cook at the Sea Inn told me that her son’s friend saw him riding Drogon to the North. They say he is going to throw himself from the Wall.”

Given the days of mindless rumours she has had to endure, Arya suddenly can’t stop herself from reacting. “That is the single most stupid thing I’ve ever heard!”

They gape at her in astonishment. She doesn’t care. She steps towards them, raising a finger into the air. “One. Only the Queen rides dragons. Everybody knows that.”

A second finger joins the first. “Two. Nobody has really seen Ser Jaime leave, dragons or no. He’s probably still here.”

She gestures around, furiously. “And three. Move! People are trying to get by.”

There is a small rumble of laughter from those waiting as Arya turns and stomps away to the sparring area.

/-/-/-/-/

Within the hour, all of the tall tales are proven entirely untrue.

Wordlessly, the Evenstar enters Herdmarket Fort, with Ser Podrick by her right shoulder and Ser Jaime at her left. They do not seem to hear either the silence that accompanies them, or the whispers that break out in their wake. All three of them are in armour and are utterly inscrutable.

They stride, almost as one, into the practice area where Ser Kyron is already assessing the capabilities of the newest arrivals, one by one. They station themselves just in front of the palings, becoming unmoving.

“Will you be taking part today, my Lady?” the bearded knight asks.

The woman in blue speaks, her voice flat and her gaze fathomless. “We’ll only speak if we can offer insight, Ser Kyron. Carry on.”

She falls silent and the testing continues.

Hopefuls are viewed one at a time, each sparring with a knight of fairly equal size.

Arya can barely stand the wait for her turn. It seems endless. She has to remove her hands from their resting place on the palings behind her when she realises she is pressing into the rough wooden surface so hard, she is close to giving herself splinters.

Finally, she is called.

Her feet are leaden as she walks into the centre of the sparring area, as somebody she doesn’t even see hands her a blunted sword.

A female knight steps forward to face her. She is very young and has an open and friendly face, with curls of brown hair that remind Arya, momentarily, of her brother Robb. She ignores the pang of sadness she feels at this, and offers her hand to her opponent. “Arya of House Stark.”

The young woman shakes her hand firmly, with a warm smile. “Ser Jamy Rivers of the House of Tarth.”

“Ser Jaime?” Arya blurts out.

The knight before her shrugs, ruefully. “It’s spelt differently.”

“Oh,” Arya grins, her nervousness dissipating. “That’s helpful.”

Ser Jamy giggles, even as she lifts her sword. “Ready?”

Arya nods, raising her own steel.

“Begin,” says Ser Kyron.

It turns out that the smiling young woman in front of her is quick. Very quick. She leaps forward, slapping her steel against Arya’s shoulder within a mere moment.

It stings, but Arya will not let herself be intimidated by speed. She is quick, too.

She falls into a cautiously defensive stance, spending a little while just blocking as many sword thrusts as she can, trying to discern any pattern or weakness she can exploit.

Then she sees it. Ser Jamy is extremely skilled, but she leaves one small gap that allows Arya the chance to lunge, the point hitting the leathers covering the curly-haired knight’s belly.

“Cease.” The voice that calls out comes from an entirely unexpected source, on this day.

Conversations that Arya hadn’t even really heard going on around the palings stop. The whole fort seems to fall into an expectant hush.

The Kingslayer has spoken.

“I had always thought that the death of Syrio Forel was a coincidence,” he says, quietly. “I thought he was merely defending a helpless child, at his death.” He slowly paces over and stops in front of her, peering down curiously. “I had no idea he was defending a gifted student. You were his student, yes?”

Arya looks up him, nervously. “How do you know?”

Ser Jaime slowly and deliberately lifts her blade, resting the point on his armour, over his heart. Then he reaches out to her hand, closing his fingers over hers, which she knows he must feel shaking. If he notices it, he does not say and his gaze is calm, steady.

For long moments, he simply holds her hand completely still. She wills her fingers to stop trembling within his grasp. She knows he is measuring her skill and temperament. And measuring her hatred of him. She steadies herself, pushing away any thoughts of her father. Of Bran. She has promised her brother she will try to trust this man.

Ser Jaime suddenly twists her wrist and the tip of her blade skitters slightly across the burnished steel covering his chest. “This wrist movement. It’s pure Forel. And it isn’t basic. It works well, with a rapier. If you’ve hit bone, it flexes the blade and causes much more damage. Though I must warn you, don’t use it, with a wider sword. At least not for now. Slash, if you will. Twisting this kind of blade is wasted effort, in battle. Only do so if you really have to.”

He releases her hand and she lets her tourney sword fall.

“Yes, Ser Jaime.”

He considers her for long moments. Then, to her surprise, he says the words she so desperately wants to hear.

“You will train with us.”

She knows her mouth has dropped open in shock. She has only managed one hit! She gathers herself and answers him. “Thank you, Ser.” He turns and walks back to his former position, becoming perfectly still, once more.

Ser Jamy shakes her hand, smiling widely. “That was...brief. Congratulations.”

“You’re very good,” Arya comments.

“I’m better with a bow. I’ve been using those since I was very young. Come on, after all that waiting you must be thirsty.”

/-/-/-/-/

She is surprised at how difficult she finds the demands of life in training on the island of Tarth. She has long since considered herself to be in very good physical condition, but it appears that the bar is set very high for those who would be Dragon Warriors.

For the first fortnight, she falls into bed in a state of exhaustion, only to find herself waking in the morning more tired than she was the night before.

She wonders if, perhaps, the years spent at Winterfell, since the Winter War, have seen her become soft.

Gradually, her body becomes used to the punishing schedule.

There is an absolute minimum of two hours a day spent in the wooden sparring areas of the Herdmarket Fort, with Ser Kyron insistent that all of the prospective knights have absolutely perfect form, strength and speed. This means different things for different people, of course, but from what Arya can see, he seems to be very gifted at adapting his teaching to the vast range of abilities he encounters. It soon becomes clear that he is the most important person on Tarth for those without cloaks. He is the one who truly gets to understand their individual skills, passing on this information to the other senior knights.

The big, blustering man seems quite fond of her, and quickly takes to calling her ‘Tardy’, even though she is far from the oldest hopeful in Herdmarket. He had, he says, been expecting her to arrive for years and so the name is deserved. She does not ask him why he had thought this, even though her curiosity on the matter is almost blinding. She does not mind. Tardy is not the worst name held by anybody, even on Tarth.

She always smiles at the Lady Aryena, his wife, when she comes to watch them. It is only then that she sees Ser Kyron in another way. His wife may be considered meek, but the loudest knight of the House of Tarth unfailingly blushes in happiness, underneath his enormous grey beard, at the sight of his beloved. It warms Arya’s heart.

Ser Kholo does not have a name for her, other than her own. Arya finds him an extremely knowledgeable and competent warrior, and chooses to study his style of on-horse fighting for at least another hour of every day. It is an area in which her skills are scant. He is hard to know. He speaks little, more than happy to use physical examples to replace tiresome words, rewarding correctness with a simple, short nod. Ser Kyron might be the most influential knight on Tarth, for those who are cloakless, but Kholo is the one Arya enjoys learning from the most.

There is, of course, one other senior knight she must spend time with, on a daily basis. She is not the only person on Tarth to be wrong-handed.

Every day, she is required to learn from Ser Jaime of Tarth.

At first, it is difficult.

She rankles, inside, at every piece of criticism he levels at her, despite the fact that he never does so without suggesting methods of improvement.

He is unfailingly polite, even restrained in his manner and Arya finds this annoying, as well. She remembers the arrogant Golden Knight of her youth. It is as if he is hiding himself.

Lying to everyone.

It takes her some time to accept that he is different, now.

That the Winter War changed him, as much as it had changed her.

Maybe even more.

/-/-/-/-/

Every night, the people of the House of Tarth gather to eat in the Great Hall of Evenfall.

There are so many that the meal is a long and informal affair, with empty seats being taken as soon as they are left by those who have eaten already.

There are no fixed seating arrangements and everybody eats the same quality of food.

Those waiting gather in small groups throughout the hall, chattering away animatedly about their day. Some do not bother to sit and eat; they are quite happy to stand, spooning their food from a wooden bowl as they carry on their conversations.

This lack of formality extends to the Evenstar herself. She will take a seat if there is one available; yet will readily stand to eat with none of the sense of injured pride that Arya might expect from the head of a House. She often greets the children of Tarth, if she is there early enough to see them. She talks quietly with whoever she finds about her, asking about their progress and comfort.

She never speaks of her own.

She is not always alone, when she arrives. Often, she will sit with her castellan, Ser Fredrick, discussing the day to day running of Evenfall. Sometimes his wife, Old Lady Lolla, will accompany the Evenstar.

Lolla’s position here seems strange to Arya, at first. She constantly flits about the huge warrioress whenever she is near, all caring gestures and caresses that seem too familiar. It is very odd to see Lady Brienne being touched at all. Then Ser Jamy tells her about Lolla’s role as the Evenstar’s ‘second mother’. That is explanation enough.

Their leader’s most constant companion, however, seems to be the Kingslayer.

Arya has seen them together before, of course. She’d arrived home only days prior to them being taken on the orders of the Dragon Queen, at Winterfell. She has never seen them fight together, but knows that they were side by side for much of the Winter War. And she’s heard the songs. So their friendship does not surprise her.

Even if it has changed.

At Winterfell, they had seemed lighter, happier, even though they were waiting for the seeming inevitability of imprisonment, and perhaps death.

She had asked the Lady Brienne, all those years ago, why they did not run.

“Dragons rule the whole world now, Lady Arya. There is nowhere left to run,” was her simple reply. Arya finds it funny that somehow they have ended up making even more Dragons.

Things between the Kingslayer and his ‘Whore’ (even back then, Arya could believe it of him, but never of her; the Lady has always practically oozed honour) were much less restrained then.

The sharp witticisms, the teasing elbows and the bickering she had once seen in both of them are now gone.

There is a relaxed easiness in the way they interact, but it is underscored by the utmost propriety with which they treat one another.

And they never touch.

/-/-/-/-/

The Evenstar sends for her three moons after she is accepted on Tarth.

She makes her way to the lady’s chamber, expecting to find her resident in a grandiose room, as her rank warrants. When her knock is acknowledged, she opens the extremely heavy door and steps through into anything but. It is not big at all. If anything, it reminds her of the chambers of Winterfell, even if it is a little more sizable. The bed is large, naturally, but there is only a small fireplace with three chairs about it, a table in the corner and a chest under the window, currently almost heaving under the weight of blue armour. The walls are panelled and it does not lack a fair amount of floor space, but to Arya it all feels quite cosy.

It gives her a surprising insight into the woman sitting by the fire, who closes the book on her lap and gestures to her.

“Lady Arya. Thank you for coming to see me. Please be seated.”

Arya moves forward and perches on the edge of one of the chairs. There is a long period where nothing is said. The Evenstar simply looks at her with a gaze that is both heavy with scrutiny, yet kind.

The older woman eventually breaks the silence. “Ser Jaime has spoken of you. He suspects that you spent some time, during the Winter War, being trained in Essos. Is this true?”

Arya nods, slowly. “In Braavos.”

“It is necessary for you to tell me what skills you already have, so we can properly tailor your learning. I understand that your freedom to speak might be...limited. Could you tell me what you can?”

“Stealth. Gathering information.” Arya pauses, uncertain. “Assassination.”

When this garners no reaction, when blue eyes do not so much as flicker in surprise, she continues. “Though mostly stealth. I can travel nearly anywhere, unnoticed.”

The Maid of Tarth leans back in her chair. “That is interesting.” She sweeps a hand up towards her chest, her head tilting slightly and an eyebrow rising wryly. “Stealth is something that I’m clearly not built to teach. Only about a half dozen of the Dragon Warriors have notable skills in the area. They have all offered advice on the subject. It would be helpful to us if you were also to suggest improvements.”

Arya is startled at this request. She doesn’t think she has proven herself here yet, far from it, but she has obviously not kept her existing skills as hidden as she would’ve liked. Even the source of them has been vaguely guessed.

“I’m not a knight,” she stutters.

“You don’t have to be a knight to have useful knowledge, Lady Arya. It would be a sorry world if that were so.”

“Now?”

“No. At some point. Whenever you feel you have something to add.” The Evenstar smiles. “Please think about it.”

She reopens her book and Arya takes this as her cue to leave. She almost reaches the door when Lady Brienne speaks again. “Before you go...there is a weirwood tree on Tarth, my Lady. It is only small, but it was once a part of the Godswood at Winterfell.”

Arya blinks. “There is? Can it even grow, here?”

“It seems to be. We are trying to accommodate for all of the Gods of those who come here. Your sister sent us a sapling, for the folk of the North. It is not far; midway between here and Fallsong. To the right at the old golden birch. It is in a walled area, for privacy.”

“Thank you, my Lady.”

Determined to end this conversation politely, Arya tries to curtsey, but just ends up scowling as her ever negligible feminine graces fail her, again.

“Please don’t curtsey, Lady Arya. Certainly not to me.” The Evenstar grimaces and then smiles softly at her guest, once more. “After all, yours is almost as bad as mine.”

Arya grins widely. “Yes, Lady Brienne.”

“Good night, Lady Arya.”

/-/-/-/-/

Early the next morning, Arya rises and makes her way to Tarth’s only weirwood tree.

Following the directions of the Evenstar, she soon finds herself approaching an enclosure of high, stone walls. She can see some of the larger, native trees of Tarth behind them, but there is no sign of a weirwood. She supposes it will not be very large, if it is only a sapling.

She steps through the gate to a strange sight.

The larger trees she had noted before are gathered around a small clearing.

In the middle of this clearing, a tiny weirwood seems to be desperately reaching for the sky with twisted limbs, even though the highest branch would only reach her shoulder.

And next to it, his legs crossed and his blue cloak spilling onto the grass about him, sits the Kingslayer.

When he notices her moving towards him, Ser Jaime of Tarth’s only reaction is to stand, unhurriedly, and leave this place in silence, nodding to her as he passes her by.

She watches him go, curiously, before stepping forward to drop into his place before the little tree. It is dry here, whilst the grass all about is covered with a light dew.

She looks around her. This is a very odd place. It is nothing like Winterfell’s Godswood. Everything here is so lush and green; yet the feel of it is not dissimilar.

She starts to listen. This is when things get stranger. She thinks she can feel her brother, in this place. But everything is changed. The sounds around her are different. She is used to the dry rustlings of leaves in the North, not this deeper, slapping noise from trees filled with so much water. She does not know if he will hear her, here.

Yet she must try. She reaches forwards, running her fingers over the pale bark of the little tree in front of her.

“Hello, Bran,” she says.

/-/-/-/-/

Days blur into one another, with the fight against the screaming of tired muscles and the clashing of metal against metal becoming the only things that matter.

Arya improves.

Often, the Evenstar watches over training sessions, but with no particular regard for her, or those instructing her. As far as Arya can determine, she does not pass on her knowledge to adults without cloaks. It is commonly known that the Lady Brienne teaches the younger hopefuls, and that she also trains with the knights; but her forays into the sparring yard, despite being almost legendary, are rarely witnessed.

She seems to feel the need to hold herself aloof from everyone.

Arya does not realise what a shame that is, until she happens to venture outside, late one evening, to find the Evenstar and Ser Kholo clashing arakhs.

They are almost equal in size, though the Dothraki knight is a handful of years younger than the Maid of Tarth. They have clearly been here for some time. The soft light from the torches flickering in wall sconces, about the courtyard, makes the sweat on their skin shine.

Arya is struck by how different they seem, in these circumstances. They are both generally so withdrawn; yet they here they are, unrestrained as they push as against each other, each trying the force the other’s blade away.

“When did you get so strong, little gaezo?” the Evenstar hisses, her face red with strain.

Ser Kholo answers her through gritted teeth. “I grew, inavva.” He suddenly spins away and as the Lady checks her balance in response, he turns back and slams his arakh into her ribs, just below her raised sword arm.

Arya winces as the Evenstar shouts out a word she doesn’t understand. “Govak!”

The Dothraki knight just chuckles. “In my language, you curse like a khal. With a graddakh accent. Who lifts her vem too soon.”

“Don’t you start,” the Evenstar smiles, ruefully. “I get enough of that from Jaime.” She shakes her arms and raises her arakh again. “Hethke?”

He tilts his head in assent and the dance continues.

Arya is entranced.

This hardly feels like sparring at all. They are measuring their blows so well, only just stopping short of allowing them to inflict real damage.

Ser Kholo moves about the yard with an almost unbelievable level of grace. He is highly skilled with this, his favourite weapon. Probably the best on Tarth. All of his movements are finely tuned, his effort evenly measured throughout.

The Evenstar carries her own kind of grace, but Arya can see that it is purposely kept erratic. Periods of precise economy of movement in defence are punctured by moments of outright, unstoppable ferocity in attack.

Eventually they begin to tire and a last flurry of blades see the Lady mirror Ser Kholo’s earlier blow, making the eastern warrior grin, even as he stoically ignores the sharp pain he must surely be feeling.

“Chiftikh, chiori,” the Dothraki says, though his smile falls away immediately as the Evenstar whips the blade up his torso to rest it at the base of his throat.

Now his opponent is the one grinning. “Just a gezrikh, Kholo. And don’t call me ‘woman’.”

Ser Kholo laughs, offering a hand to his opponent, which is duly shaken. They make their way to the sword racks, placing the weapons inside. He lifts a wooden panel from its place beside the rack, sliding it into place and Arya starts, realising that in her time here, she has never before seen the practice weapons shut away.

The two combatants start untying the belts on their leathers.

Ser Kholo asks a question. “Where is yeri hoshor hand?”

The Evenstar pulls the main body of her leathers over her head and uses the back of her hand to swipe away stray hairs that are stuck to her face. “Still in the Godswood, I think.”

“Strange. He moved here, but now he is a valshek.”

“I’ll only start worrying if he starts to build an enormous wall.” Lady Brienne pats him amiably on the shoulder, albeit that Arya is sure that she would be driven to her knees by the gesture. “Thank you, Kholo.”

He nods. “My Lady.”

They leave in different directions, the Evenstar walking back into Evenfall Hall and Ser Kholo heading towards the stairs that lead down to Herdmarket Fort.

The taciturn Master of Horse smiles at Arya, as he passes her by.

/-/-/-/-/

She speaks to Ser Jaime when she sees him in the Godswood, one evening.

She is nervous as she sits herself down next to him on the grass, but as he was the one who noticed her skills, it seems practical to approach him with her ideas. She also doesn't want to trouble Lady Brienne, so soon after her father’s funeral.

And she had promised Bran she would trust him. Or that she would try.

She takes a deep breath.

“I spent some time training with the Faceless Men in Braavos.”

He turns his head towards her, an eyebrow raised. “Really?” He sounds impressed.

“Yes.”

“Little wonder nobody could find you. What things can you actually tell me?”

“I sold a lot of cockles. And I was blind, for a while.”

A slow smile forms on the Kingslayer’s face. “What useful things can you actually tell me?”

They talk, for an hour or so. She can’t say much about her time in the House of Black and White, but they end up having quite an interesting discussion about the use of stealth in warfare.

In the end, he rises to his feet and looks down at her. “Your ideas are sound. I will pass them on to the Evenstar. In the meantime, you keep on being as stealthy as you like, Little Wolf. Thank you.”

Barely a fortnight later, he will perhaps regret those last words.

/-/-/-/-/

Arya hides behind a pillar, as she hears footsteps approaching the Great Hall. It is normally quiet at this time of day. It is currently entirely empty. Apart from her.

The footsteps are familiar and the sound of chairs scraping across flagstones almost obscure the first words spoken.

“What’s wrong, Brienne?” Arya starts at his voice. Ser Jaime sounds different, his tone awash with warm concern.

And he had called her Brienne.

When she replies, the Evenstar also doesn’t sound like herself. Her voice is lighter, less controlled and she seems to be pained, her words arriving unsteadily. “This is the day I was hurt by Biter. I think. My memories of that time are...strange.”

Arya silently covers her own mouth with her fingers at the name Biter, her stomach roiling in revulsion. It had simply never occurred to her to ask about the manner of the Maid of Tarth’s maiming. She thinks back to the monster in the cage, on the road to the North. She can’t bear to think of that thing hurting this honourable woman. She listens as the words continue to come, sounding distant, like an echo from this terrible time.

“I hardly remember the pain of it. I know it was overwhelming. But I remember what I saw. I know I could not move. My left arm was broken, badly, and my right was holding a dagger that didn’t seem to harm him. No matter what I did. I couldn’t move. He was so _heavy_ , Jaime.”

“Brienne...” Ser Jaime whispers softly, but she carries on, her voice becoming firmer, still distressed, but also almost angry.

“Then he bit me. He spat out his first bite, but then he did it again. I really couldn’t move at all, and so I saw him...chewing on my own flesh. It was all I could see. I was stunned, from falling to the cobbles. I couldn’t even move my head. I think I saw my own freckles being chewed, Jaime. I saw my freckles, being chewed in his mouth, before they were covered in my own blood. I’d always hated them. But then he swallowed them. He...he enjoyed swallowing them. And I still want them back.”

Arya reels inside and thinks ‘I set him free’ over and over, gagging even as she hears Ser Jaime speak with barely controlled fury.

“He _ate_ your flesh?”

“Yes. That was when I knew I was dying.” She pauses. “I don’t remember much else.”

“I always thought it happened in battle,” her companion says, clearly struggling to believe what he is hearing.

“The battle was over, for me. I was beaten, Jaime. Broken. This felt like a fight of a different kind. And I lost. Badly.”

There is a long silence. “And you have spent all these years letting me think I had saved you from rape with a lie about sapphires. I’m sorry.”

Now the Evenstar sounds confused. “Jaime, you misunderstand me. I was _not_ raped.”

His voice is bleak with anger. “He took your flesh for his own. He ripped it from your face with his teeth and he bloody ate it. He made you _watch_ whilst he did. You were raped. Maybe not conventionally, but since when have you ever been conventional, Brienne?” His words accelerate, beginning to tumble out of him, now more confused and upset than angry. “I know it’s not the same. Maybe it isn’t as bad. Maybe it’s worse. I’m not a woman. I don’t know. I don’t know if I can know. I just know how I feel about it. I can’t bear the thought of you lying helpless, whil...”

His voice breaks. He sounds close to tears. “Gods, Brienne. I just...I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be, Jaime.” Arya is sure she can almost hear hands reaching out, touching. “Jaime,” she says, more forcefully, “you couldn’t know. I’ve never spoken...”

There is a rapid scrabbling of fingers on the surface of the table and the Lady’s voice cuts off.

Arya knows she is discovered. She suddenly realises her breath is whistling through her own fingers in her distress.

_I set him free._

“Little Wolf, I know you are there.” His words are now clipped and precise.

Arya is frozen in place.

_I set him free._

“You can step out now.” She can’t move and he sighs. “I was a member of the bloody Kingsguard for almost as long as you’ve lived, Pup. I tend to eventually notice, when I am being listened to. I can hear you. You feel quite as ill as I do, right now, don’t you? You want to throw up your own toes, yes? Don’t worry, I do, too. Come here. That is an order.”

The Evenstar’s whispers rapidly. “I’m sorry, Ser Jaime, I didn’t know. I didn’t know we weren’t alone.”

Arya steadies herself, steps out from behind the pillar and is caught in the red-rimmed gaze of the Kingslayer. He looks at her for what feels like an age, but the dangerous hostility that initially seems to emanate from him in waves gradually softens as he wordlessly feels her intent.

He glances at Lady Brienne, who is sitting with her head lowered, her thumbs repeatedly running over the grain in the wood of the table. “All is well, my Lady.”

His attention turns back to Arya. “You know nothing of this, am I correct?”

“Yes, Ser,” she answers, with gentle sureness.

“Good,” he says. “So serve the head of your House. Go to Ser Fredrick. Inform him that the Evenstar will be indisposed for a day or so. I am also unavailable. And tell him to send Lolla to the Lady Brienne’s chamber. Now.”

That last word cracks out like a sword hitting stone and sets Arya to moving almost without thinking. As she paces away she hears the Tamer of the North softly reassuring the Maid about Arya, herself. It astounds her. Apart from one conversation about stealth, they have never really spoken about anything but swinging a sword since she arrived on Tarth. Yet he is defending her, his voice low but certain.

“Brienne. Listen to me. She will keep your secrets. She is worthy of your trust. She may despise me, and with good reason, but she would see no harm come to you.”

The Kingslayer is wrong. She no longer despises him. This is the day when what remains of her hatred for him is stopped, in its entirety.

She moves faster and faster, finally running through the corridors of Evenfall Hall almost blindly, arriving at the castellan’s room in turmoil.

‘I set him free,’ she thinks. ‘I freed the man who maimed her.’

Ser Fredrick looks up at her with clear concern when she enters his chamber.

“What’s wrong, Lady Arya?” he asks.

“Nothing,” she lies, and they both know it. She delivers Ser Jaime’s message in a trembling voice. Ser Fredrick thanks her and suggests, kindly, that she go and rest.

When she gets back to the tiny room she shares with Ser Jamy, she crawls under the plain woollen blanket on her pallet and allows herself to cry. She doesn’t know if she is crying for the Evenstar, out of guilt, or about the whole damned war that took so much from everyone.

She just cries.

After a while, the curly-haired knight comes in and drops down beside Arya, crossing her legs on the floor and looking at her, questioningly.

Arya slowly lifts her hand to her cheek. “I heard the Evenstar talking about her scars, today. I can’t say anything, but...”

“I know,” Ser Jamy says, simply. “I was there.”

At Arya’s startled glance, she just shrugs. “We were just orphans, living on our own in an inn, during the war. That’s where I first picked up a bow. One night, we were attacked. Lady Brienne tried to protect us. I’ve never seen anyone fight so bravely. Man or woman.”

She pulls at the left knee of her leather breeches, frowning at them and Arya notices that they are torn, again.  “I won’t say anything else about it,” she says, a little stubbornly, but then she looks back at Arya with fierce determination. “But I would fight the Stranger himself, if she asked me to. She’s the reason I’m here.”

Ser Jamy Rivers of the House of Tarth smiles.

“She is the reason I am a knight.”

/-/-/-/-/

Ser Charro, a small, skinny knight from far to the east, begins to hold informal lessons teaching stealth. He is remarkably intelligent, if untutored in many things that most people take for granted. He knows nothing of history, except for legendary escapes of past masters of his craft. He didn’t even know that there were dragons, before Queen Daenerys. He deems that information unimportant.

“I don’t care about that. Though if you find yourself near a dragon at any point, you’re doing it wrong,” he sniffs, dismissively.

At first, only a half dozen of them gather to learn from him. He paces back and forth, talking with great animation as the sun shines on his bald head and his strange ear jewellery clinks with the movement of his jaw.

But he is knowledgeable, blunt and funny. Soon others join them.

And at least some of the Dragon Warriors of the House of Tarth start to become stealthy.

Arya excels here. This is what she knows.

/-/-/-/-/

Arya is told that the first knightings of Dragon Warriors were quite dignified affairs, carried out in the Great Hall of Evenfall with solemn ceremony.

It is not so now, but she thinks she prefers the current informality, anyway.

She asks Ser Kyron why knighting on Tarth had changed as she’s leaning on the palings of the Herdmarket sparring area, drawing in deep lungfuls of air after a particularly punishing drill session. He ruffles her hair (even though she ties it back, he rarely hesitates to do so, which she sometimes finds annoying) and tells her, in his loud, friendly boom, that there are too many Dragons. Formal knighting would require equally formal ceremonies every few days. “Not even the Dragon Queen has the coin for that, Tardy,” he laughs.

The first sign of the making of a new Dragon is the pacing of the armoured Lady Evenstar through the corridors, the Lady Lolla Redbeard bustling along behind her, bearing a neatly folded bolt of familiar blue cloth.

When this is noticed, folk of all sorts begin to follow. What starts as two people, moving with purpose, soon becomes a cavalcade of the people of Tarth, those at the rear excitedly shouting to attract the attention of still others, and whispering amongst themselves about who could be getting their cloak today.

The Evenstar has apparently long since given up on stopping the impromptu gambling that strikes up behind her as the host moves. Arya even suspects that the serious woman secretly delights as they walk past prospective knights, the moans from behind her meaning that people are losing their money.

Arya’s own blue cloak comes to her on a rainy day.

She couldn’t be more shocked. She knows she has driven herself harshly, but she can think of at least four or five other hopefuls she considers more worthy of knighthood, without thinking very hard. People who have been here far longer than her.

It a strange moment. She feels the weight of her hair, plastered to her head in the rain.

Water drips from her nose as the Evenstar stops in front of her with a great deal of dignity that is somewhat lacking in the people gathering about them.

Oathkeeper is drawn. “Kneel, Lady Arya.”

She falls to one knee and the oath itself passes by in a blur, though she knows she gets a part of it wrong and has to repeat herself.

She rises in cloth of blue as Ser Arya Stark of the House of Tarth and the next thing she knows, Ser Jamy barrels into her, almost knocking her off her feet as the crowd surges in about her.

The Kingslayer evens comes forward briefly and shakes her hand. “Don’t doubt yourself, Ser,” he says firmly. “If you didn’t deserve it, you wouldn’t have that cloak.”

/-/-/-/-/

She wakes the next morning in the Sea Inn, now famed for its connection to the Dragon Warriors. Though honestly, she isn’t quite aware of her location, at first. She squints against the daylight and lifts her head gingerly from the table beneath it, grimacing as she wipes at the drool coating the side her face.

Jamy is sitting opposite her, looking almost as bad as she feels. “That was fun, wasn’t it?” she whispers.

“I have no idea,” Arya says, her words rough and loud in her head.

“Oh. Good,” her friend and fellow knight mutters. “I don’t know, either.” She grins brightly, but then groans and rests her head in her hands.

/-/-/-/-/

Once Arya has gained her cloak, she begins to see the true complexity of the relationship between the Evenstar and her Left Hand.

Being a Dragon Warrior means she simply has the opportunity to spend more time with both of them.

Whilst Lady Brienne speaking of her maiming had made clear that there were deeper feelings between the two than she could have ever suspected, it is only after she is knighted that she comes to understand the price they are paying for their own lives.

/-/-/-/-/

The Muddle-Handed Melee has fast become one of the most celebrated events on Tarth. Warriors flock to this island from all over Westeros and Essos. The narrow streets are choked with people, many of them hoping to take part in this yearly spectacle.

Arya had missed the last one by three sennights. She is told that it began as an informal affair, allowing the rarer, wrong-handed warriors of Tarth the opportunity to fight against one another in competition. The Evenstar had reasoned that even here, such opportunities were not plentiful. It would be a useful exercise.

Within three years, others had begun to travel here to take part. At first, their numbers were small. Now, for the eighth Melee, shiploads of them have come. Not all of them are muddle-handed. Those that aren’t are free to watch; it has rapidly been widely noted as a good way of observing specific skills and tactics. And some of them may even get to participate.

The Melee now allows competitors with the use of either hand, though at least two-thirds will be wrong-handed. Arya hears that the rules had changed two years past, when Ser Kyron argued that a mix of hands would allow those watching the broadest scope for picking up new ideas.

It takes place in a roped off area of field, an hour’s walk from Evenfall. It is surrounded on two sides by large, gentle slopes, where people can sit.

This year, Arya travels to the field with the Evenstar, Ser Jaime and Ser Kyron, early in the morning. She has been given a role to play in the children’s event that precedes the Melee itself.

‘The Rescue of the Kingslayer and the Maid’.

They arrive to find the slopes already more than half full of somewhat fierce looking revellers. There is a festive atmosphere, with many people eating and singing. Some of them are already drunk. Or perhaps still drunk from last night. Arya isn’t sure, but she suspects the latter, in many cases. There are flags fluttering, everywhere.

“Well, this gets a bit more humiliating every year,” Ser Jaime says, dryly.

The Lady Brienne is unmoved. “As I remember, it was your idea the second time round. This is entirely your fault.”

He shrugs. “At least we’ll get to sit down before the main event.”

“In the mud.”

“Just like old times.”

Preparations are made, as more blue cloaks arrive. There must be heavy supervision of the energetic youngsters.

The fifty or so children and more inexperienced squires (there is no need for muddle-handedness, here) are gathered together and pick ribbons from a bag, determining their affiliation. Blue for the rescuers. Black, matching the colour of Ser Kyron’s current cloak, for the captors. They are each given a small wooden sword to bear, and are very firmly told to not be causing each other serious injuries.

Then the older knight then lightly binds the wrists of his ‘victims’. “I’m sorry, my Lady,” he apologises.

Ser Jaime sighs. “Kyron, you always say sorry to her, but never to me.”

“I know,” the bluff fellow says, “but as the Lady rightly told you, this is your fault.”

Then it begins. To the roaring of the ever increasing crowd, Ser Kyron strides out onto the ‘battlefield’, his cloak billowing, his right hand bearing a long coil of rope.

He looks back towards the small gap in the perimeter that serves as an entrance.

“Bring me my captives!” he roars, impressively, his fist reaching to the sky. “Bring me the Kingslayer and the Maid!”

Whilst Kyron seems born to play this part, Arya feels almost embarrassed to be the one pushing the two famed warriors forwards. But then Ser Jaime glances back at her with an amused flash of teeth, whispering, “Oh, you can be much angrier than that. I’m sure of it.”

She allows herself to shout, “Move, prisoners!”

 /-/-/-/-/

The Melee proper is finally about to begin. Ser Podrick helps Arya with some of the more difficult straps on her borrowed armour after he has ensured that the Lady Brienne is safely encased in her steel.

The Evenstar herself appears to be as content as Arya has ever seen her, standing near the ropes, rolling her large shoulders as if loosening her muscles. She is even smiling as she picks up her blue greathelm.

“She seems happy,” Arya says.

Pod grins, almost viciously; which is very much unexpected, coming from him. “Oh, she is. Those people who were...unpleasant this morning? Whenever she was called the Maid?”

“Yes?” Arya utters darkly. Some of the crowd had been more than rude. The Evenstar herself had appeared entirely unaffected by the jeering. Ser Jaime had been a different matter; his face growing ever more bleak with each shout about his alleged ‘whore’.

The younger knight’s smile only widens. “Well, now she gets to fight some of them.”

Arya feels her mouth drop open.

“That’s why most of us right-handed Dragons don’t want to take part. We want to watch. It’s so _good_ ,” he chuckles excitedly, as Arya realises something. “Is that why they were tied back to back earlier? So they could see everyone?” Now she is smiling, too.

“Mostly.” Ser Podrick Payne nods and tries to be serious, for a moment. “The honour of the members of the House of Tarth must be defended at all costs.” This newly gathered seriousness falls away, almost immediately.  “And if Ser Jaime has his way, it’ll be paid in teeth. Just you see! Be safe and stick close to them if you can, Ser Arya. You won’t believe your eyes.” He places her helmet onto her head with a resounding thunk. “Good luck.”

He pats her on the shoulder and goes to take his place on the nearby slope.

Arya edges over to where the Evenstar stands. The Kingslayer has joined her and she is looking at his golden hand, pointedly. “Are you sure it’s secure, Ser Jaime? We don’t want it falling off again.”

The Kingslayer hefts his right hand. “Thicker strapping. It won’t budge, this time.”

“Good.” Lady Brienne lifts her gaze to where the black-cloaked knight is pacing about in the field, shouting and gesticulating dramatically. “Hurry up, Kyron,” she mutters, beginning to sound uncharacteristically impatient as her armoured foot starts to beat down on the grass beneath it.

“My Lady, if I didn’t know you to be so tediously noble, I’d say you look like you can’t wait to hit people.”

The Evenstar does not avert her gaze from Ser Kyron, even as she smiles. “I really can’t.” She grimaces in disbelief as the huge bearded knight starts booming out tales of dragons. “Is it just me, or does this part get longer with each passing year?”

“Perhaps you should de-cloak him and sign him up to a band of mummers?” the Kingslayer mildly suggests.

A short laugh. “I might have to consider it.”

As Ser Kyron’s dramatics finally seem to be winding down, Ser Jaime looks towards Lady Brienne, curiously. “What is the word this time, my Lady?”

“Goat.”

She picks up his greathelm with her free hand and they both place it over his head, in a shared movement so practised they could have done it a thousand times before.

His voice sounds strange within the confines of metal, but Arya can still hear the humour lacing it. “I like it. Though surely it should be ‘sheep’?”

The Evenstar slams her own greathelm, the one she has been holding onto for what seems like an age, into place, with a sigh of relief.

“No,” she says lightly, though her tone is deepened by her helm. “Even Lolla’s thrown a sheep.”

They move out onto the field and the Muddle-handed Melee begins, to a loud blast from a horn blown by Ser Kyron and a mass of cheering from the crowd.

It is much harder than Arya had thought it would be. Although she understands the need for armour today, she unused to carrying it in combat. She thinks she acquits herself well, though, managing to fight her way past five opponents before a huge man from the Iron Islands catches her on the head with a glancing blow from a warhammer. The hit is not too hard, but her ears are left ringing and she raises her sword to end her participation, moving over to where Ser Podrick is sitting.

She steps carefully over the rope and slumps down next to him. He turns to her and lifts off her helmet. “Are you alright, Ser?” he asks.

“I think so,” she says, shaking most of her dizziness away.

Pod looks at her with concern for a few moments, but then grins. “It’s better here, anyway. Look.” He points back out into the melee.

To them.

The Kingslayer and the Evenstar are fighting alongside one another and even the briefest of glances shows Arya that they are extraordinary.

They are not fighting the same people, though they share her large shield. She instantly flicks it away from him whenever he shouts ‘goat’, his golden hand invariably connecting with flesh almost before he has finished saying the word. Each hit is greeted with a cheer from the watching Dragon Warriors of Tarth, particularly the Dothraki blue cloaks, who are gathered further along the slope. She can hear the usually quiet Ser Kholo roaring with laughter at their heart.

She looks back to the field as Lady Brienne fells a knight from King’s Landing with a savage series of blows, even as she shifts her shield once more, allowing more teeth to fly at her left. The Kingslayer himself is merely using his sword for defence now, albeit that he is massively skilled in doing so. He just seems to prefer relying nearly entirely on his metal hand to cause damage.

“They fight so well together,” she comments to Pod.

“This is nothing,” he says. “You should have seen them in the North.”

/-/-/-/-/

“Where has Ser Kholo gone?” she asks.

“Oh, he always nips straight back to the harbour after the Melee,” Ser Jaime smiles. “He likes to glare at some of the less pleasant departing visitors.”

“He is very good at glaring,” Ser Podrick mumbles around the crust of his pie.

“And you, Pod, are very good at eating.” The feared Kingslayer picks up the empty cloth bag that lies between the three of them with one finger, somehow contriving to dangle it accusingly. “Was that the last one?”

Podrick Payne manages to look a little shamefaced, though he doesn’t let it interrupt his chewing.

Arya glances at Ser Jaime as he lets the bag fall back to grass below them, chuckling. They are sat towards the bottom of one of the slopes around the field, having been released from all duties for the rest of the day.

Just as she had noticed earlier with the Lady Brienne, this is the happiest she has ever seen the Kingslayer. He seems perfectly content with this day.

In fact, the only person who seems unhappy about how the eighth Muddle-handed Melee has gone is Maester Arth, who suddenly appears out of the people still milling around. He marches straight up to Ser Jaime and stares at him, disapprovingly.

“Must you break so many of their teeth, Ser Jaime? We’re going to be pulling out bits of them for days. Can’t you just knock them all out?”

“I’m very sorry, Maester. I haven’t quite managed to perfect the technique, yet.” The knight in question breathes onto his golden hand and polishes it on the corner of his cloak, as if he hasn’t a care in the world.

The thin man frowns. “You’re not sorry at all, are you?”

Ser Jaime slowly pulls himself to his feet, grimacing when his back clicks, as he rises. Then he looks down at the Maester, unapologetically. “No. They insulted the Evenstar,” he says, shortly.

“Did they? Again? They still do that?” The most learned person on Tarth pulls his fingers through the sparse, black hair on top of his head, his brow furrowing as if he can’t quite believe the level of stupidity he occasionally encounters. “In that case, can you think of any particular individuals who may find waiting a little longer than most for the attention of my pliers a useful lesson? This is a school of sorts, after all.”

The Kingslayer grins, darkly. “My dear man, I thought you’d never ask.”

They slowly wander off towards the tents where the wounded lie, speaking quite amiably about the surprisingly low number of serious injuries this year.

There are more broken teeth, though. Apparently, Pod tells her, this is not a new thing.

Every year, there are more broken teeth.

/-/-/-/-/

It is, as ever, an extraordinary sight. The Evenstar is in her formal armour. She doesn’t wear it every day, of course, but these are the occasions when she seems to mind doing so least of all.

She is wearing it for the children. The very youngest ones to have been sent here. Some of them have not even seen their tenth nameday. All of them seem to love the Lady Brienne. They are gathered about her, some of the smaller ones grasping on to her cloak, as if for comfort. Arya is sure that, had they their own way, they would follow the ruler of the House of Tarth all day, as ducklings follow their mother.

They have been standing in the courtyard for a while, watching the Tamer of the North ‘fighting’ with Ser Kholo.

She has been slumped in the corner of the courtyard for some time, exhausted after a long sparring session with Ser Jamy. She really is very good. Arya bites into her fruit and feels some juice run down her chin. She wipes it away with her sleeve as the Kingslayer and the Master of Horse spin about, grinning all the while.

The little ones seem entranced by what they are seeing, even though Arya can see that the two men are exaggerating their thrusts and parries almost ridiculously.

She surely knows that if she ever even attempted to be so flowery in practice, they would berate her for it. Yet she fully understands the point they are making; she is more than happy to watch this.

One of the young ones finally asks a question. “My Lady Evenstar? Why didn’t they cut off Ser Jaime’s sword hand?”

Arya hears Ser Jaime chuckle at Ser Kholo, quietly. “There’s always one.” The Dothraki knight grins and throws a vicious overhand blow that fails to connect, deflected by a golden hand as their shoulders begin to shake with badly concealed mirth.

This seems to be a familiar dance for them.

Lady Brienne ignores them, looking down at the beautiful child from the Summer Isles who has spoken with utter seriousness. “They did, Grahxo.”

Coal black eyes widen in surprise. “But he is...”

“Extremely skilled with his wrong hand, yes,” she says. “He was not always so. At first, I might as well have handed a sword to a kitten.” Ser Kholo actually snorts and Ser Jaime gapes, even as their swords continue to clash.  She continues, regardless. “Yet he was determined. That determination has served him well. He trained hard and became a feared knight, once more.”

One of the smaller children begins almost jumping up and down in excitement, his red curls bobbling about his freckles. “What was he like with his sword hand, m’lady?”

Her tone becomes almost conspiratorial and she smiles down at her charges. “Deadly, Karmund, but not quite as good as they say. After all, I beat him.”

Both of the knights are laughing now, even as Ser Jaime puts up a token protest. “My hands were shackled!”

She straightens up and answers as if she is stating the most obvious thing in the world. “You were my prisoner, Ser Jaime. Of course they were shackled.”

“We’re never going to agree on this one, are we, my Lady?”

“No. Yet I think it worth remembering that when we were interrupted, you were the one in the dust.”

He raises his sword up in the air, pausing the ‘fight’ to consider the matter. “More like mud, I think.”

Arya watches as the Evenstar allows herself to smile at him, if only for a moment. “My point stands.”

She turns her attention back to the children standing around her. All of them are now looking up at her with nothing short of open adoration.

The Evenstar had kept the Kingslayer in chains! She had beaten him with a blade when he had his true sword hand!

“Come now, little ones. We should get you back to Ser Kyron. He is waiting for you at the Herdmarket Fort with some wooden swords. Perhaps if you practice as much as Ser Jaime, you will become feared knights, too.”

The group bustles away, the Lady Brienne taking the lead and any stragglers being herded along by the recently cloaked Ser Anara.

The two knights standing in the courtyard wait for them to disappear, before they double over, both of them rocking with laughter.

Kholo is the first to be able to speak, though it is barely. He points at Ser Jaime and manages to spit out a lone word.

“Kitten!”

The Kingslayer shoves the shoulder of the Dothraki warrior beside him, even as he snickers nearly uncontrollably. He draws in a deep breath. “Oh, go fuck one of your beloved horses, Kholo.”

Kholo just claps a large hand over his own mouth. There is still a word he seems to be able to squeeze out from behind his fingers, though.

“Kitten!”

“Oh, Gods!” Jaime grins. “You’re never going to let this go, are you?”

Kholo drops his hand and shakes his head, firmly. “Kitten.”

The Kingslayer walks over to the rack of tourney swords, dropping his own into an empty space. His smile is wide, and his shoulders are still quivering with the humour of it all. “Best we put our swords down now, I think.”

Ser Kholo follows him, does the same, and then looks at his friend pointedly.

“Yes...Ser Kitten.”

They both laugh again, outrageously, and depart for the Great Hall, all back-slapping, elbows, and the Golden Hand loudly hoping that the food available is not as bad as the slop they had been offered yesterday.

/-/-/-/-/

She goes down to the harbour with Jamy and Anara.

To somebody unaware of their positions, she is sure they would just look like a group of young women, chattering happily as they go to market, arm in arm.

Apart from their cloaks, weaponry and Anara’s light armour, of course.

They make their way along the dock, dodging past the more enormous knights Tarth in all their metalwork, and the skittish horses the Dothraki are trying to coax on board a ship.

“Isn’t this great?” Arya smiles at her companions.

They look at each other, eyes alight with mirth and Anara shakes her head. “We’re off, probably to battle, and this one acts like she’s going to a grand feast. Bloodthirsty cow,” she grins.

Jamy laughs. “She’s right, though.” Anara nods amiably in agreement.

Arya spots the Evenstar at the other end of the dock and she can’t help herself. She can feel her long plait flailing about as she jumps up and down, desperately waving, trying to catch her attention. They aren’t going to be travelling on the same ship.

Lady Brienne notices her and waves back.

She turns back to her friends, smiling triumphantly, but they just gape at her in disbelief for a moment, before Jamy claps a hand her on the shoulder. “Tell me, Arya, when is it your twelfth nameday, again?”

Giggling and teasing one another, they walk up the gangplank and once on board, Arya secures her plait. The ends of the wide pins that will hold it in place that are sharp, honed to a point that means she can easily replace a lost dirk, in the heat of the moment. Not that she often loses a dirk, but it is better to be prepared.

/-/-/-/-/

Her first battle as a knight is a short, yet exhilarating experience.

As one of the smaller, quicker knights, the Evenstar had placed her just behind the very front line of warriors. The task she and a dozen others had been given was to attack any enemy who broke through, however minimally. If so much as a hand made it past the first rank, they were to cut and injure it.

It sounded simple, in theory, but the practice was infinitely complex. They had to avoid being hurt by their own troops, picking their way through the battle carefully. If the opportunity to kill arose, they were to take it, but that was not their true purpose. They were there to maim and to weaken the opposition.

“Just make them bleed,” the Evenstar says to them, her voice harsh, all hint of the natural kindness in her gone. “Make them falter. It will limit our losses. Strike precisely and retreat.”

“Like scorpions,” Ser Kholo adds helpfully from her side, his eyes deadly.

So it is that wrists and ankles and knees and exposed necks and faces become her battleground. She darts forward to inflict wounds, only to back away swiftly.

It feels to her like it is over too soon, but it’s a relief to be reunited with Jamy who is carefully packing away her bow when Arya finds her. “Is Anara alright?” she says, slumping down on the ground next to her.

“Just seeing to her horse,” Jamy replies, laughing. “And I’m fine as well. Thanks for asking.”

/-/-/-/-/

The general excitement of their return wears off quite quickly, and everybody falls back into the familiar routines of life on Tarth.

Ser Charro comes to her, only days later, and asks her to consider helping him with the instruction of stealth. She agrees and she suddenly finds herself teaching the simpler ideas, whilst he refines the skills of those with more advanced knowledge.

It is a strange change in status, stranger even than becoming a knight.

But she thinks she likes it, even if it means she spends some time every day trying to find her younger charges in the hidden places of Evenfall. Not too long, though.

They aren’t very good at it. Yet.

/-/-/-/-/

The Evenstar often brings tankards of ale to at least some the people gathered to eat in the Great Hall. It seems to give her the opportunity to try and dispel her fierce reputation a little, as she weaves her around the tables, gently placing offered refreshment in front of those who wish for it.

She does so today, as Arya and Ser Jaime are discussing her sword, Needle. Arya is surprised to hear that he saw her most treasured blade, when it still rested in the coals of the forge of Winterfell.

Lady Brienne finishes her task at their table, though the tankard she places in front of the Kingslayer is only half full. He smiles at it, oddly.

“Thank you, my Lady. I am thirsty.”

She appears to blush lightly as she holds out a message.

“Your brother sent me a raven, Ser. There is some information about the Riverlands campaign you should see.”

Ser Jaime takes the parchment and unrolls it. He reads slowly, as if considering each word with care. Once he is finished, he returns it to the still outstretched hand of the Lady.

“I see. So it was a test of all three?”

“Mostly one of those three, I think,” she says, dryly. “From his words.”

“Yes.” Ser Jaime looks at the Evenstar a little apologetically, but says nothing.

“And as you can see, Lord Tyrion intends to visit before the year is out.” Her attention shifts to Arya for a moment. “Though I’m afraid your sister will remain at Winterfell, Ser Arya.” She looks back at the Kingslayer. “Has he ever been to Tarth, before?”

“No. I do know one thing for certain,” he says mildly. “He’s going to appreciate all those stairs.”

/-/-/-/-/

They frequently sit together in the youngest Godswood, now.

Sometimes they are silent, content to listen to the trees. Where she hears words, he hears the breeze.

Sometimes they talk.

“Why you do come here so often?” she asks, one early evening.

“Not for any Gods, I assure you. I doubt the Gods have time for me.” He cants his head, as if considering her question. “I like it here. And I get the feeling Bran wants to keep an eye on me. I can hardly blame him.”

“How did you know? About my brother, I mean.”

“So many questions, Little Wolf,” Ser Jaime says, fondly. “Let’s just say my first visit to the Godswood at Winterfell, during the Long Night, wasn’t exactly peaceful.” At her curious look, he continues. “I’ve never had to dodge so many falling branches, in all my life. He has good aim, your brother. Your sister eventually talked to him on my behalf.”

They fall into quiet, for some time. Arya feels perfectly at peace, but Ser Jaime’s mood seems to slowly become deeply sombre.

At last, he speaks; quietly, gently, but his simple statement violently twists her insides.

“I am sorry about your father.” He pauses. “He had honour.”

Arya’s fingers grasp onto the grass at her sides. Better the inoffensive turf than the hilts of her blades, right now.

She grits her teeth as she is hit by a tide of grief. She is unmoving for a long time, she thinks, memories of childhood rushing through her head. Memories and rage.

For a moment, she wants to hurt the man next to her for crippling her brother. For having had an evil, merciless, bastard son.

But her brother has forgiven him. And his bastard son is dead.

Nobody won the war. Not really.

She closes her eyes and she can see her father’s last moments so clearly, it is as if it only happened yesterday. She can still smell the old sweat on Yoren’s tunic, as he held her against him, stopping her see Ice fall, taking her father’s head.

“I was at his execution.” The words sound strangled as they emerge from her tight throat.

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Ser Jaime drop his head into his hand. “I did not know,” he says wearily.

A few deep, trembling breaths and she decides to accept his apology. “It was war. And you lost your father, too.”

He huffs. “My loss wasn’t so great.” At Arya’s sharp glance, he shakes his head, frowning sourly. “You would not have liked my father, Little Wolf. I didn’t. Be glad you never met him.”

She lets the last of her anger flow away and smiles slyly. “Oh, I did. I was his serving girl at Harrenhal, for a while.”

He looks at her, disbelieving. “You weren’t?”

At her nod, a brief, dark chuckle escapes his lips. “The missing Stark girl. Right under his nose.” He turns to her, curiously. “Why didn’t you kill him?”

She shrugs. “I was tempted, but only an idiot would kill a ruler in their castle.”

His green eyes narrow, as he vaguely pretends to be offended.

“Oh, tell me I’m wrong,” she says, and they fall back into an easier silence.

/-/-/-/-/

Arya doesn’t even know why she tries to turn the handle.

But she does, and the handle turns. Then the door opens.

She steps through it, and into a different world.

Shirtless and covered in sweat, Ser Jaime is curled behind Lady Brienne. His fingers are stroking through her hair and he holds her torso firmly against his with his bare stump.

Her body bucks against him fiercely, with a keening cry. Arya almost turns to flee the chamber, her face aflame, until she realises what she is actually seeing.

She is asleep.

And the Evenstar is weeping.

Ser Jaime notices her intrusion and grimaces. “Lock the bloody door and go through there,” he hisses quietly, awkwardly flicking his head back towards an open panel in the wood cladding the walls.

Oh.

Arya nods and turns to fumble with the lock, her fingers uncharacteristically clumsy as her mind reels.

It is a widely known fact that the Evenstar generally locks the door to her chamber at night. She now sees the dual purpose behind such a choice. Not only does it maintain her reputation, but it hides this.

She can hear his voice behind her; gentler now, as he whispers to the woman he is holding with such fierce protection. “Woman, listen to me. We’re safe. The war is over. We are home, on Tarth.” Arya moves swiftly to the small passageway in the far corner. She knows where it will lead to. There is, after all, only one room, the Evenstar’s private armoury, between hers and his. As her feet take her from the chamber, she notes he has not stopped talking.

“Come now, wench. Please find some rest. Please. Brienne...”

She steps into Ser Jaime’s chamber and is brought up short by Ser Podrick, standing there with his arms folded. He doesn’t look very pleased and he’s managing to loom over her impressively. “What are you doing in here?” he asks.

“The door was unlocked and a party have arrived from Casterly Rock. Lord Tyrion is with them. I thought that Lady Brienne would like to greet them.”

She hears a low moan of anguish from the Evenstar’s chamber. Arya flicks a glance over her shoulder, towards the opening in the wooden panelling in this chamber, before looking back to the man before her.  “Are her nights always so terrible?”

“No,” Pods answers, shortly and grimly. “Sometimes his are. She helps him, too.”

They wait in solemn silence as Lady Brienne’s cries die away.

Within moments, or so it feels, she is confronted by the Kingslayer. “What are you _doing_ in here?” he asks, desperately.

“What are _you_ doing in here?” she replies angrily. She finds herself babbling, without thought. “You can’t be together. What if there are children? The Queen said you...”

“The Lady Brienne remains the Maid of Tarth, Little Wolf,” he interrupts, acidly. He pauses, grimacing. There is an almost tangible edge of pain, of sheer want in his eyes and voice, when he speaks again. “I would not risk her so.”

She is struck dumb. They have, it would seem, been living in these rooms for years. Her fingertips nearly tingle with the measure of it. The measure of their sacrifice.

They are together. Yet they cannot ever be together.

She suddenly feels a little small. “Oh.”

He sighs, wearily. “Yes. Oh.”

He looks at her, his gaze serious. She has seen this before. He is measuring her, once more.

Then his mood shifts and he grins, winks, his eyes turning far less serious. Arya suddenly sees a flash of the young Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, as if channelled straight from her childhood memories. “Still, deflowering isn’t everything. There are plenty of other ways to show affection, isn’t that right, Pup?”

He ruffles her hair and she blushes so much, her cheeks are hot as a furnace.

“I’m so sorry, Ser Jaime,” she stutters, suddenly aware of her rudeness, her impertinence, but then a thought comes to her, unbidden and she again speaks without thought, but with more confidence. “I am glad you have found ‘other ways’ though.”

He chuckles. “I had thought you better at holding your tongue, Ser Arya. Weren’t there all those years of secret training..?”

She smiles. “Sometimes I revert back to my youth, Ser. Mostly when I’m surprised.”

He nods, grinning. “You were a truly dreadful child, as I recall,” he says, mildly.

She sticks out her tongue at him. He replies in kind, and Ser Podrick Payne of Tarth simply sighs in resignation, just as Lady Brienne steps out of the short passageway.

She takes in the odd scene before her, her tired eyes widening in alarm when she sees Arya, who immediately steps forward to speak. She doesn’t want the Maid of Tarth to suffer unnecessary distress.

She speaks out, with no signs of judgement. Her gaze is firm and sure.

“Please do not be concerned, my Lady. Your reputation is sound. It is certainly safe with me. And I am glad that you have found some measure of comfort and happiness.”

The Maid’s enormous hands reach out and hold her little ones like an injured bird. Her touch is so light. This is not like the practice yards or the battlefield. All of her brutality is gone. In this place, in these two rooms at least, it would seem she is gentle. Her look is grateful and, as ever, kind.

Her remarkably blue eyes are steady and unashamed.

She speaks softly. “Thank you, Ser Arya.”

She steps away, moving to lean on the table in the corner.

Ser Jaime looks from Ser Podrick to her. “Tyrion is here, yes?”

Arya nods.

“My dear, blastedly inconvenient brother. I’ll be having words with him, soon enough. Turning up in the middle of the night. No fucking manners at all.”

Lady Brienne smiles. “He vaguely admitted to me once that you weren’t taught to knock, as children.”

He, in his turn, smiles at Arya. “Apparently, we weren’t the only ones.”

He walks forward to the Evenstar, reaching up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her left ear, his head tilted peculiarly as he does so. He is looking at her. Truly looking at her. The Lady Brienne flicks her eyes in Arya’s direction, clearly concerned. Ser Jaime just shakes his head with a smile and it is as if he can be heard.

_She can be trusted._

Arya is overwhelmed by the feeling of this trust being placed in _her._ By the scale of it. She watches, immobile, as they converse without words. And when he finally does speak, the knight’s voice is low and laden heavily with truth.

“Always together, yet ever longing.”

Arya turns her head away in shock before the Evenstar replies.

“Always together, yet ever longing.” It is the merest of whispers, like honey, a sound so soft and warm that Arya feels her heart break. She glances up, only to feel it break more as she watches the Maid of Tarth lift the stump of her captive knight’s arm to touch her ravaged cheek, and then slowly turn her head to press a featherlight kiss onto it.

She only gets a momentary glimpse of Ser Jaime’s face, as his eyes become glassy with the deepest of emotion.

Arya looks away again. She must.

_This._

This is true intimacy.

She has seen people rutting at the roadside, in the brothels of Braavos, even in the kitchens of Winterfell, when she was but a small child.

She has never seen this.

They are clothed, yet they are now stripped bare.

There is nothing between them.

Nothing.

They see each other. They can see nobody else.

And yet.

There is everything between them.

Everything.

It hurts to think of it. It pains her to suddenly know that two of the people she has worked so hard to care for, to accept despite past wrongs, must be denied the equal and happy life for which they are clearly so well matched.

Only now does she see the gentility and longing in both of them, the taint of them both knowing full well that they will never fully physically possess what they are driven to need.

She aches for them.

She looks up, once more, when the Kingslayer speaks. “So. Tyrion.”

“Yes,” Lady Brienne replies, softly. “I’ll see you shortly.”

She simply turns and goes back into her chamber.

Pod is already laying out Ser Jaime’s armour when he asks her, “What are you doing?”

Arya shrugs nervously. This is all so strange to her. “I don’t know.”

The Kingslayer looks at her and groans. “Go and help Brienne with her armour, Little Wolf. There are two of us, here. We’ll be fine.”

She nods and walks through to the Evenstar’s chamber, only to see something else new and shocking.

The Lady is pulling a clean shirt over her head and Arya sees her back bared, for just a moment.

It is covered in scars.

Covered in them.

She draws in a deep breath.

Lady Brienne hears it and turns her way, her face flushing in embarrassment.  Even so, she holds her head high in this place, speaking dryly, almost like her knight. “I don’t know if you heard, Ser Arya. There was a war.”

“I heard, my Lady.” She paces forward until she is standing directly in front of the Evenstar. She smiles up at this extraordinary woman. “I just didn’t know it all happened within an arm’s length of you.”

The Evenstar grins, suddenly all teeth and awkwardness. “It certainly felt like it did.” She points towards her armour. “Would you help me?”

She does.

They meet in the corridor and outwardly, they are changed to the familiar, once more.

She falls in beside Pod.

Behind them.

She, the stern, but admired warrioress of the Sapphire Isle and he, the shamed prisoner, the skilled and quiet knight.

Arya finds the change both comforting and heartbreaking. This is what she knows, this is what she finds normal, mundane, yet her view of them has been utterly, irrevocably altered.

They are bound, by honour, to hide and also to deny themselves so much that is beautiful.

Arya feels herself struck hard in the chest by a mere thought.

_They would have had such wonderful children._

She watches them walk solemnly towards the Great Hall of Evenfall, to greet their guests.

The Maid of Tarth’s shoulders are held square, her head high, her days of avoiding the cruel gaze of the world long since over.

Let them judge her. They will not speak of it. She is now known to be magnificent. She doesn’t care, even for this. It is what it is.

The Kingslayer, as he’ll forever be known in the wider world, walks quietly along, as will always now be his place, at her shoulder. Ever subservient.

He was judged long ago. Others will speak. They always do. It will never matter. He is what he is. Only those that matter will really know him.

All is suddenly clear to Ser Arya Stark of the House of Tarth.

The very early morning air still holds a mild remembrance of the chill of winter, as they make their way to the Great Hall of Evenfall.

But Arya is blinded, once more. Even now, as she sees.

In the quiet of a darkened corridor, with nothing to be heard but footsteps on stone, they shine so brightly.

/-/-/-/-/

The Lady Myrcella Lannister travels to Tarth, from Dorne.

It is a peculiar situation. Everybody knows her parentage, yet even her father does not speak of it. No familial link is hinted at by anybody, at all. Not even in the Sea Inn, when everybody is in their cups.

She is treated in absolutely the same fashion as all of those who travel here, high born or low. Arya supposes this to be necessary. Myrcella spends a few days in the Herdmarket Fort, as all possible Dragons do, just watching the general ebb and flow of the people and warriors of Tarth. Acclimatising to this strange place. The she joins the nine other young hopefuls, walking down the enormous number of stone stairs from Evenfall Hall, where they have just eaten, when they are to be tested.

She is to be judged by two of the finest swordsmen in the whole world.

Ser Kholo and Ser Jaime.

And Arya is to fight her. She thinks she is a cruel choice for the match, but agrees to participate.

The wait by the palings is as long as her own had once been. She keeps glancing at the young Lady, watching as the nervousness she remembers so well washes over her.

Eventually, the Lady is called.

She steps forward, and watches Myrcella’s eyes widen in recognition and then concern.

But Arya just smiles warmly, introducing herself in the proper way.

“Ser Arya Stark of the House of Tarth.”

The woman in front of her nods. “Lady Myrcella of House Lannister.”

Kyron orders them to begin after they lift their tourney swords.

Arya is in for a shock.

This one is gifted.

She is thankful that she has spent some time studying the Dornish style, because within the space of a heartbeat, she is on the back foot, defending against a whirl of thrusts that, whilst lacking absolute precision, show great promise.

She gathers herself and starts to move more offensively, pushing her opponent, but not too far. They move about the practice yard fluidly, trading blow after blow for an age. Arya doesn’t know for how long, but she knows this is an extraordinarily lengthy test of a hopeful.

When sweat finally starts running into her eyes and her opponent starts to lose her composure, making her clumsy, Arya raises her sword.

She looks towards the two silent knights observing this engagement. She doesn’t even realise she is breathing hard until she speaks. She knows she sounds angry.

She doesn’t care. “Really, Sers? Do _I_ have to tell her she will train with us? You paired her with me, because I’m wrong-handed. To make it difficult. And you’ve made her fight for so long. This isn’t _fair_ to the Lady,” she pants.

She looks at Myrcella, who appears just about ready to drop.

Ser Kholo speaks. “You are right, Ser Arya.” He looks at the Kingslayer and nods.

Ser Jaime steps forward. He speaks softly. “My apologies if you were tested too harshly, Lady Myrcella. You will train with us.”

The young woman holds her head high. “I understand the reasons, Ser. Thank you for accepting me.”

Ser Jaime tilts his head in the direction of her scarring, obscured as it is by her hair, which she has tied to the side of her head. “This ear can still hear?”

She leans her head so familiarly and positively. Arya almost gasps; she is so much like him. They are almost the mirror of each other, in this moment.

If he sees any familiarity, he masks it well. “Good. Then do not cover it. Cut your hair short or tie it back properly. Here, scars mean nothing. Most of us carry them. On Tarth, they do not detract from your worth as a warrior, or as a woman. And purposely dulling your senses is considered actively stupid. It could get you killed.” His voice is lacking any harshness. Kind, yet restrained.

Lady Myrcella is coolly polite in response. “Thank you, Ser Jaime.” Arya can only admire the effort she must be making to show the utmost dignity, despite the turmoil she is surely feeling inside.

Ser Jaime nods and walks away.

Arya would think him entirely unaffected by this meeting, if she failed to notice one thing.

As he paces back towards Ser Kholo, Arya can see his hand is trembling.

She thinks that Myrcella sees it too; even as she shakes her pale hair free, only to tie it back at the nape of her neck. When she is done, she glances at Arya, clearly scared of the reaction of others to her disfigurement.

Arya’s first words in adulthood to the young woman, other than her own name, spoken plainly and without a trace of malice, seal a brand new friendship that will last for both of their lives.

“I’ll bet that hurt.”

The Lady blinks, but then smiles. “Yes.”

Arya reaches out, shaking the hand of the newly accepted student. “Congratulations, my Lady. Come on, you must be thirsty after all of that waiting. Not to mention the fighting.”

/-/-/-/-/

“One night, when I was in the east, I was attacked in an alleyway by two men.”

“They knew you were a woman?” The Kingslayer’s nostrils flare in disdain. His views on such things are well and widely known.

She nods. Her tongue is suddenly thick, making speaking hard. “A girl, at least. They did not manage to...I...I mean...I stopped them. With Needle and Lady.” Her knuckles are white where they grasp her beloved dagger, to pull it out of its sheath. It is a simple blade, no longer than the small hand holding it, with a groove running along its length, so it doesn’t get stuck in flesh. It is good steel.

He looks at her, approvingly. “An appropriately named dagger.”

She shrugs. “Not really. I named it after my sister’s dead direwolf.”

“It is no less fitting for it, Pup.”

They sit quietly, two pairs of eyes fixed on pale bark as the breeze rustles the leaves.

“It still bothers you, occasionally,” he says, gently.

She considers the matter. “More than it should, I think. More even than my own father’s execution, sometimes.”

“Is that why you refused to marry?”

“Yes. No. Sort of.” She sighs at her own indecisiveness. “It didn’t help.” Then she smiles as her fingers tease the edges of her cloak. “And I always wanted to be a knight, anyway.”

“You’re free to be both, you know.”

She shakes her head. “I’m not sure I am.”

“A wise woman once said to me that what is taken from us does not matter. It is the things we choose to give that count. Do not give up on happiness, because it was once taken from you. Happiness is a well that doesn’t run dry. You can always find more to give.”

She giggles. She actually giggles. “That was _Lolla_ , wasn’t it?”

A laugh rumbles in his chest. “Please don’t tell her I called her wise. I love her almost as much I have ever loved anyone, but she would be insufferable for days.” He thinks for a moment. “Probably longer.”

“Do you think that I can find happiness, Ser?” she asks, seriously.

“Without question.” He looks at her, oddly. “It is...strange that you should ask this now.”

At her curious glance, he goes on, somehow managing to sound like he’s talking about the weather. “I’ve heard there is a new blacksmith, down in Herdmarket. I also hear that he blathers on endlessly about a young woman of his acquaintance. A tiresomely independent young thing, from what I gather. Fond of castle-forged blades. She disappeared on him, during the Winter War. Or perhaps he disappeared on her. I’m not sure of the details. It all sounds terribly inconvenient, anyway.”

Her heart is thudding in her chest. “What?”

Ser Jaime continues. “Yes. He’s been on Tarth for two days. Apparently he bears a remarkable resemblance to a late king, yet is deeply uninterested in anything remotely approaching politics. Can you imagine such a beast? And he keeps talking about this bloody girl.” Green eyes turn to her, almost flowing with good humour. “Never stops, I’m told.”

“Gendry?” she whispers. “Gendry is here?”

The Kingslayer grins. “Do you know any other smiths who blather on endlessly about you?”

Arya rises to her feet, unsteadily. “I have to go,” she mutters.

He looks up at her. “Yes. I think you should,” he says, mildly. “I’ll stay with Bran for a little while longer.”

She pats him absently on the shoulder before her feet take her away. “Thank you, Ser Jaime.”

/-/-/-/-/

She sees her smith.

They argue.

She storms away from him indignantly, but her heart is warm and full.

She thinks his is, too.

/-/-/-/-/

Arya waits next to Lolla, her hands sweaty as she holds the soft material under her cloak.

The Evenstar is teaching the young ones. She wears no armour, just a light tunic and breeches. It is already warm. Little wooden swords clack against one another in the morning light and the excitement is clear in the children’s faces. They don’t often get to practice in the courtyard of Evenfall Hall, where the famous knights of the House of Tarth clash swords.

As the lesson progresses, more and more people begin to drift into the yard. If Lady Brienne notices the increase in numbers, she pays it no mind. Her attention is undivided, given only to her charges. It is an opportunity to see the feared warrior woman in an entirely different light, for most of those gathering here.

She is firm with the youngsters, yes; but she is also overwhelmingly patient and kind, no matter how many times her long fingers have to grasp a small wrist and guide it into the correct position.

By the time she points at the wicker basket by the weaponry rack and tells her students to put their swords into it, there are people looking out of the windows.

Then he arrives, with Ser Podrick at his side.

They step into the yard, striding towards the Evenstar in perfect time, and stop in front of her.

Arya is astonished by the change in the Kingslayer. It is not so much in his looks, though she will admit he appears every inch the perfect knight. It is his bearing that is changed. Here is a man who will brook no argument, who is used to bending others to his will.

This is not Ser Jaime of Tarth, the quiet, polite knight who only seems to come alive in private conversation or with a sword in his hand. His armour may be darker and he may be older, his hair shot through with grey; but this is Ser Jaime Lannister, the Golden Knight, still.

He bows with absolute, courtly precision. “My Lady.”

The Evenstar frowns with suspicion. “Ser Jaime. What is this?”

He speaks loudly, as even more folk of this island come in through the main gate. Some of them are huffing and puffing from the long ascent. The courtyard is suddenly quite crowded. “As you are all well aware, I recently had my fiftieth nameday.”

There is rowdy laughter from those watching. Lolla pulls on Arya’s hand and leads her forward, pushing past those in their way until they are standing at Ser Jaime’s side.

Eventually, a golden hand rises to quieten the throng. “I know. I know! I’m old,” he says, wryly. He looks at the Evenstar and his voice becomes serious. “And I began to think of the things that haven’t been done. Things that are lacking on Tarth.”

Lady Brienne’s face darkens. “I don’t know what you mean, Ser.”  Her tone is dangerous, though Ser Jaime appears entirely unruffled by it.

“The Queen made you the Evenstar and ordered you to make her knights. Dragons. And you have.” He waves about him. “Look about you, my Lady. So many knights. Magnificent warriors. And you made them _all_.”

She does, and the Lady quickly becomes curious. She gestures slightly towards him. “Bar one.”

An eyebrow flicks upwards in amusement. “Bar one,” he concedes.

He swiftly steps in until there is almost no space between them.

“Except...no one has ever knighted _you_.”

A sharply indrawn breath catches in the Evenstar’s throat.

“In all of Westerosi history, you, Brienne of Tarth, are the only unroyal, non-knight to have made knights. It seems terribly unfair that nobody has ever had the decency to do the same for you; me, most of all. What say you we put that to rights?”

He steps back and she lifts a shaking hand to her mouth. The courtyard is silent. Everybody seems to be holding their breath.

Their leader swallows convulsively, her eyes darting about to all those around her. She lets her hand drop away and looks at Ser Jaime for long moments. Finally, she nods.

“Good,” he says, mildly. “I hope you don’t mind? I sort of ‘borrowed’ Oathkeeper from your armoury. I don’t think anybody wants to be knighted with a sword called Widow’s Wail.”

He grabs the hilt of her Valyrian steel, which seems to sing as it is pulled from its scabbard, the sound ringing about the courtyard. He lowers the tip until it is almost resting on the stone beneath their feet.

He speaks with warmth. “Kneel, my Lady Evenstar.”

She stands stock still for a few moments, as if in shock, then falls to her knees. Both of them. She looks down, her shoulders hunched, as the oathtaking begins.

The Kingslayer speaks out, loud and clear, for all to listen to. “Brienne of Tarth, do you swear, as a knight of the House of Tarth, to serve for the good of the realm, with all of your heart?”

The Evenstar lifts her head. Her face is covered in confusion.

Arya remembers how that feels.

“I, Brienne of Tarth, swear, as a knight of the House of Tarth, to serve for the good of the realm, with all of my heart.” She sounds as if she doesn’t believe this is real.

Arya now remembers that as well.

Oathkeeper flicks up and brushes her left shoulder.

“Do you swear to uphold knightly honour and virtues?”

“I swear...,” the Evenstar’s voice suddenly falters and she draws in a deep breath. “I swear to uphold knightly honour and virtues.”

Ser Jaime of the House of Tarth touches the sword gently upon her right shoulder, this time.

“Do you swear that if Dragon Warriors are called, you will answer?”

“You already have!” somebody calls from the back of the crowd, and the Lady smiles.

“I swear that if Dragon Warriors are called, I will answer,” she says.

Oathkeeper feathers over her left shoulder.

“Do you swear to defend the weak and the innocent?”

She sounds certain, now. “I swear to defend the weak and the innocent.”

Her right shoulder feels the weight of her own steel again, so briefly.

But then it is his voice that falters. “And do you...do you...”

His head falls low and his shoulders begin to rock slightly.

The Lady Brienne’s head drops too and she almost seems suddenly disconsolate; leaning slightly forward, her fingers splaying on the cobbles of the courtyard as if searching for strength in the stones beneath her.

There is some confusion amongst those watching.

“Have you forgotten your lines, Ser Jaime?” somebody shouts from a window, only to be, from what Arya can hear at least, thumped quite hard and told to shut up. Some laugh, and other voices start to ask for quiet. Then they are all told or firmly physically instructed to shut up, too. It goes on like this for a short while, until the sounds ebb away again.

It doesn’t matter. Ser Jaime hears none of it.

She, however, can faintly hear his armour rattling as he shakes within it.

Arya finds she is holding her breath. She doesn’t understand what this knighting is, or why it has changed. But she knows that it is very important.

Finally, he lifts his head again.

And the Kingslayer is weeping.

Tears are running freely down his cheeks, as his chin rises from his chest. He is breathing very deeply. His voice wavers, and the last word of the oath of the Dragon Warrior, when he utters it, sounds almost broken.

“And do you, Brienne of Tarth, swear, if you are called upon to do so, to fight Winter?”

The Lady of Evenfall looks back up and her cheeks are wet, as well.

Her eyes, though. Her eyes. Water is falling from them, almost fleeing from them, but they look to be made of the deepest sea and the strongest steel.

Even if she can only whisper her response.

“I, Brienne of Tarth, swear, if I am called upon to do so, to fight Winter.”

Lolla reaches for Arya as Oathkeeper moves both left and right. She hurriedly places the blue cloak hidden under her own into the little woman’s arms.

The Evenstar’s second mother walks forth and unfurls the cloth she is bearing, placing the cloak over her dearest Enni’s shoulders with the greatest of care. She presses a kiss onto the crown of the Lady Brienne’s head, when she is done.

The Lady, however, hardly notices this moment of affection, although she reaches up with her sword hand to rub Lolla’s fingers where they tangle in her hair.

Her gaze is locked with Ser Jaime’s. Their tears are starting to slow, and Arya watches as the newest knight of the House of Tarth says one word. It cannot be heard, it is uttered so softly. Yet Arya sees it.

“Always.”

The man standing next to her smiles. “Always,” she hears him whisper, in return.

He cautiously sheathes Oathkeeper and speaks with more conviction. “Then you are now a knight of the House of Tarth.”

His hand trembles as he reaches out for hers, but the Evenstar stills it with a sure steadiness she has managed to find in her own fingers.

Arya doesn’t think it usual for the one doing the knighting to be the one so shaken. Yet in this case, it doesn’t seem to matter.

“Arise, Ser Brienne.”

There is a roar as he pulls the Evenstar to her feet and for a long moment, they look at their joined hands, before she is pulled away into the whirlwind of congratulations that inevitably follows a cloaking on Tarth.

The old warrior stares at his empty hand, but then Ser Podrick turns and reaches out, shaking it firmly. “That was _not_ the worst knighting I’ve ever seen. Thank you, Ser Jaime.”

The Kingslayer gathers himself before he replies. “At least now you can call her Ser Lady and never be told you’re a liar,” he says, somewhat sardonically.

The Squire chuckles and moves away to try and get to the Evenstar. He obviously wants to congratulate her, too. Arya thinks that almost nobody on Tarth deserves to do so as much as he.

Almost.

She feels a light shove and looks up at Ser Jaime.

“Thank you, Little Wolf,” he tells her. “Lolla was sure she would be caught with a blue cloak and no good reason to be carrying one.” He looks momentarily confused. “Even though she makes them.”

Arya shrugs. “It was nothing.” She notices the lady in question approaching before he does. “Speaking of Lolla...”

The collision of the swiftly moving Lady Redbeard with the Kingslayer’s middle actually makes him take a half step backwards. Arya laughs as Ser Jaime rolls his eyes at her.

“I always knew you weren’t that bad!” Lolla cries against him.

“Lolla,” he says fondly, patting her back. Then his features grow wary.

Arya glances behind him and laughs again, nodding ferociously.

“Dearest Lolla,” the Kingslayer sighs, doing his best to sound thoroughly weary as he tilts his head down at the woman embracing him. “You can remove your hands from my arse, now. I don’t even know why you’re bothering.” Then he grins at her. “I’m wearing metal, you dreadful old woman.”

Lolla retrieves a hand, slaps his cuirass playfully and leans away from him. “I take it back. You’re a terrible man. No fun at all.”

Ser Jaime narrows his eyes. “I’ll tell Fredrick.”

She huffs. “You wouldn’t.” She points to a corner of the courtyard. “Also, he’s over there. Idiot.”

The three of them look in the direction of the long-suffering castellan, who simply shrugs, apologetically.

They all laugh, now. But only briefly.

Arya sees the little Lady slowly lifting the hand of the feared Kingslayer, bringing it to rest against her cheek. She smiles as she speaks to him with honest feeling, her eyes dark and bright with truth.

“Jaime. Thank you for making her so happy.”

It seems he can only stroke Lolla’s face gently in response. Arya watches his eyes lift and search out the now untied and wildly untidy hair of the tall woman who is currently being almost spun about the courtyard of Evenfall Hall by so many of her ‘children’.

“She deserves more,” he says, as if only to himself.

/-/-/-/-/

For a long time, she didn’t like climbing. But then it came back.

She often climbs upwards, in the Godswood of Tarth, now.

She can’t understand them, but these trees are kind and comfortable. And there are a few bending branches hereabouts that feel like a hammock, to lie in.

She also has some time to spare.

Anara, Jamy and Myrie (as she likes to be known) are celebrating the knighting of the Evenstar without mercy. But Arya really wants to see Gendry later, so she has excused herself, quite happy to wait until the fires of the forge die down a little.

At least for the night.

The skies are starting to darken, so she will have to climb down soon.

But then as she prepares herself for the descent, she hears footsteps.

They come into sight.

Her cloak is gone, but then so is his armour. He is not wearing his golden hand, though his own blue cloak flutters about his ankles in the breeze.

There is something strange about the look of them, walking alongside one another, as they enter the Godswood. It takes Arya a few moments to realise what is different. Ser Jaime is on the Evenstar’s right hand side. The scabbards of their priceless swords, normally so close that they occasionally tangle, sit on the same hips, but now apart. A handful of steps closer and she sees the two warriors reach out, grasping each other’s hands.

They come to a stop in front of the tiny weirwood tree and turn towards one another.

Arya’s heart almost stops as she realises what she thinks is about to happen.

The newest knight of Tarth looks about them. She does not, thankfully, look upwards. “I think we are alone.”

“Are you sure about this? It’s been an interesting day already.”

“Yes. It is as close as we’ll ever get to your dream.”

He chides her, gently. “ _Our_ dream surely, Brienne?”

“Yes, Jaime,” she says, warmly. “ _Our_ dream.”

They stand in a silence for long, rich moments, just looking at one another, before she nods.

He reaches up, unclasping his cloak and he moves around her, settling it around her broad shoulders; surprisingly deftly for all that he lacks a hand. Once he is in front of her again and has secured it near the base of her throat, his fingers reach up to her face and stroke her cheek.

He smiles. “Hello, my nearly wife.”

She sounds so happy, but almost disbelieving of this moment. “Hello, my nearly husband.”

Then they kiss. They barely touch each other, as they do so. It is clearly a mutual choice, just light brushes of arms and lips.

And it is heartbreakingly tender.

Gentle and short.

Arya can only watch.

He leans back a little. “Are you sure you don’t want to swear an oath? I know how much you adore them.”

She shakes her head. “I think we’ve both had enough of oaths, my dearest idiot.”

Then they simply turn and begin to walk away. “That’s a fine way to start a nearly marriage. Calling your nearly husband an idiot.”

She reaches out, clasping his hand and swinging their arms lightly between them. She sounds almost playful, which is a revelation. “Oh, but he is! My new nearly husband lives under a sentence of banishment, has a deeply complicated history, is definitely an idiot, and worst of all, has to fight muddle-handed. Muddle-handed, I tell you! He is quite shocking. Though I do like his smile, I suppose. And I could nuzzle on his neck for days.”

Naturally, he can be playful, too. “Well, I hate to say it, but my new nearly wife is an incredibly stubborn wench, you know. She rarely smiles and is forever knocking men into the dust. She’s famed for it. She even claims to have won a proper swordfight with me, though my hands were tied and she had been pulling me along on a bloody leash for an age. She does have astonishing eyes, though. And I do enjoy the nuzzling.”

He turns to her and an air of seriousness falls over him. “I know that this wasn’t witnessed, Brienne. That it isn’t real.”

She sounds certain. “It’s real enough for me, Jaime. For us. It has to be.”

“I’m just sorry it isn’t more,” he says, sadly.

She laughs, and it is an unfamiliar, girlish sound. Utterly trusting. “I’m _not_.” She runs the fingers of her left hand gently through his hair, as if trying to make him understand. “This... _you_...are more than I could ever have hoped for.”

Arya sees him lift his stump to tug softly on the back of her shoulder, urging her to drop her forehead gently down onto his. Then she hears him whisper in the clear evening air, almost against her lips. “Now who’s being an idiot?”

The Lady Knight is blushing when she lifts her head again. “Come, Jaime. We should get back before we’re missed. Hopefully, Kyron’s stopped singing by now and Aryena has taken over.”

He groans. “He’s terrible!”

“But she is very good.”

A few more paces and they lift their tangled fingers.

“Always?” he asks, squeezing her hand.

“Always,” she says, lifting those joined hands so she can brush her lips across the back of his wrist.

And then they let go.

Their fingers fall away from each other, and they are no longer simply the nearly married Brienne and Jaime.

They are the Evenstar and the Kingslayer, once more.

They leave the Godswood in silence, apart and together.

Arya sits on her branch, just absorbing what she has seen.

It was beautiful.

There were no tears here, no brash and all-consuming declarations of everlasting love. They weren’t necessary.

This was something far different.

True happiness, found in each other, blended with an acceptance of fate.

Making a nearly marriage.

Arya finds herself filled with a sudden sense of indignation.

It isn’t enough. They deserve better.

Then she realises something.

They thought that no one had seen them.

She was no one, once.

They truly thought that no one had seen them.

No one _had_ seen them.

Her breath shifts, becoming short in her chest as she frantically clambers down through branches, having to stop herself from jumping down to the ground before it is safe.

When she finally feels the blades of grass between her toes, she sprints across to the small weirwood tree and flings herself to ground in front of it. She can feel her right knee being cut through her breeches, as it slides over a patch of little, sharp stones protruding from the dark earth.

She doesn’t care. She must speak for them. She reaches out, caressing the now familiar bark and she knows she sounds desperate.

“Bran, I don’t know if you’re listening. But I saw it. I witnessed it. You know I did. Please make it true. Make it real. Even if they can never know it.”

Her brother answers her without hesitation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my original posting, I made it clear that there would be certain points where I would advise people who like their fics to end in a particular way to stop reading this work and consider it finished. If you really prefer your J/B to be mostly unsmutty, this would be a good place for us to part. I thank you coming on this little journey with me. :)


	10. The History

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The war is over. Some of them hadn’t thought that they would outlive it. And yet...
> 
>   
> Banner by [Ro Nordmann](http://ro-little-shop-of-wonders.tumblr.com)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: still don't own it. Curious.

CHAPTER NINE – THE HISTORY

 

The boy is dozing uneasily, huddled under Jaime’s blankets. There is no fire here. There can be none. They have travelled for a night and a day, almost without rest, but they haven’t managed to go far. To get far enough away from that cursed cave.

They are distant from any relative safety. Thoros may have stopped the bloodshed, but the intentions of the rest of the Brotherhood remain uncertain.

He sweeps a practised look around the tree line. All is quiet. Moonlight filters down through bare tree branches, bathing them in a chill, speckled light. Each breath mists in the air, suspended for a timeless moment in front of his face before dissipating into nothingness.

The Maid of Tarth lies at his feet, her sleeping form trembling under her own blankets in unconscious discomfort or distress; more than likely, both.

He finds his mind keeps going back to the cave, to the fierce upwards slash that had taken the head of the Stoneheart bitch. That was no Stark. It was a monster. And given the sheer numbers of macabre figures dangling from so many trees, hereabouts, its end was swifter than it deserved. He is fast growing tired of the sound of ropes creaking on branches as they struggle with dark, heavy burdens.

In his mind he sees a shining blade arc upwards once more. There is such a beautiful savagery in the woman shivering on the cold ground, next to him.

He has seen it before. That perfect, rising slice. She’d used it on one of the Stark men in the woods, when he was her captive, in a time that somehow feels so long ago. He almost smiles in remembrance. She had shown her strength already, yes, but until that moment he’d thought her a foolish girl, playing at being a knight. She had proven him wrong in little more than the blink of an eye. But whereas the cry that poured out of her on that sunny day had seemed like it carried the weight of the rage of all the women ever to have been wronged, her wail in the cave was different. It was a sound of purest pain, and it was a pain of her own, entirely.

He knows he once utterly believed oaths were worth honouring, though he can’t remember precisely when breaking them became truly easy for him. Yet he doesn’t think that even in his most idealistic hour, in the full brightness of his youth, he had ever railed against the idea of breaking one as hard as she.

That is, perhaps, the very thing he finds compelling about her.

He has met many people who can boast a skilled mastery of death, but almost none of them have also borne honour like it was soaked into their very bones.

Until Brienne.

When she knows what she is doing is right, she is merciless. And it is only right that she struggles for.

Not a bloodied sword.

She moans and he looks down at her. The angry wound on her cheek seems to stare back at him accusingly, almost black in the night.

_She should not be here. You put her on this path and she is suffering greatly for it. You golden fool._

He hunches down beside her as she begins to mumble in her sleep. He can make nothing of it, until one word falls from her lips with heartbreaking clarity.

“Oathbreaker,” she whispers, roughly.

He reaches out without thought, to rest his hand gently over the matted mess of her hair. “No. You are the _Oathkeeper_.” He pulls a corner of a blanket up, moving it a little more carefully when he notices it catching on her wooden splint, and tucks it about the side of her head. It would not do for her to lose an ear to the ever increasing chill, as well as everything else she has had to endure.

“Rest, wench.”

One more sweep of his hand over her head and she quietens.

He stands to continue his watch.

/-/-/-/-/

An hour or so past, they’d seen the body of his child thrown from the Red Keep, his lifeless limbs flailing as he tumbled through a plume of dragon’s fire, on his way to bloody the cobbles of the courtyard of the Keep.

Jaime’s reaction had been instant.

He’d surged forward, frantically trying to fight his way to the corpse of his son; a father at last, if only after Tommen’s end.

Brienne had moved with him. She didn’t see the point in trying to stop him. They fought side by side, but the fluidity and elegance that normally suffused them was gone, in his fury and desperation.

It is all for naught, anyway. Instead of moving towards the Keep, they’ve been pushed farther and farther back until Brienne realises all is lost. The battle has turned against them. They cannot win.

She reaches out, dislodging his helm (hers is already gone), flinging it into the face of an opponent, and drags Jaime away from the front line, grasping him viciously by the hair at the base of his skull. The hold is hard to maintain, since she has lost a gauntlet and her hand is slick with blood. She shoves him against a low stone windowsill and leans fully into him, pulling his head backwards in a mocking parody of a lover’s embrace. It can only be a parody. There is no love left in the world.

Only death lingers now.

“Do you want to live, Jaime?”

He doesn’t react. It is as if he is asleep, though he is surely awake.

_“Kingslayer?”_

He blinks at her, confused. She hasn’t uttered that name in such a long time. He finds his voice, which is made small by shock.

“My sister. She would not leave him.”

_Cersei. Always Cersei._

Brienne shoves her momentary hurt aside. This is no place for softer feelings.

“Then she is dead. Captured. Or you are wrong, and she is already gone. The Red Keep is burning.”

He does not seem to believe her, so she twists his head, the fingers tangled in his hair ruthlessly tightening and pulling.

As his eyes wander aimlessly over the flames, she leans in, biting out words into his ear. She sees her own spittle flying, landing on his face and hair. “The Gods know I would die at your side, Jaime. But not here. Not now. The war of the Five Kings is lost. The throne has been won by a Queen. I ask you again. Do you want to _live_?”

He shakes his head violently to free it, but the spike of anger in his gaze is soon replaced by bleak horror.

She asked him if he wants to live and now she has her answer. He honestly doesn’t know.

She does.

She acts for both of them, though he may well hate her for it, later.

She calls the retreat, even as she smears Jaime’s face with blood from his armour. Enough men have died in this place. Many of them were good men.

She bodily pulls him away from this fiery cesspit.

She elbows their way through retreating troops and panicking townspeople alike, trying to be restrained, but with no real concern for anybody she knocks from their path.

She knows she is acting dishonourably. At this lone point in her life, she simply doesn’t care.

If they remain in King’s Landing, her death is likely.

His is certain.

_I want him to live._

She breaks teeth to steal small but sturdy ambling horses. One more scuffle in the increasing maelstrom of those fleeing goes unnoticed.

_I want him to live._

She leads their mounts out of the nearest gate, unaware of the direction they are taking, just knowing that they have to move swiftly. They pass many others who are escaping the sacking on foot. All she sees as they ride by are countless faces, lifted up in alarm at the sight of two knights, painted red in the blood of others. Their fear leaves her untouched.

_I want him to live._

Jaime is silent the whole time. He says nothing until she stops briefly and looks back towards King’s Landing. “How is she controlling the dragons?” she muses. “They have only burned the Keep.”

“They threw him from it,” he mutters.

There is nothing she can say to this. They both know why the body of the innocent boy king had been disposed of in that way. The Starks, as diminished as they have been by the war, still command the respect and love of so many. It would only take one misguided person, ill-moved by loyalty, to have done it.

Her companion knows this, better than anybody. And the boy he had thrown had been _alive_.

Brienne reaches out, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Yes.”

She watches as he seems to grapple with what he has seen, before giving a short nod.

“We should keep moving,” she says.

“Yes,” Jaime quietly replies. Neither of them looks back again.

/-/-/-/-/

Brienne has already removed her armour. “We should try to wash away some of the blood,” she says, stripping out of her clothes unceremoniously and wading down into the cold river. She gasps as the water rises about her, but then she crouches down and immerses herself entirely. He watches her hair slowly untangle and become pale once more, fanning out around her, his head tilted curiously.

She is panting when she rises again.

“Jaime. Near King’s Landing, the blood was good. It hid our features there, but now it’ll only call attention to us. We need to get rid of as much of it as we can.”

He sees Tommen’s body falling once more. _“King’s Landing,”_ he whispers, darkly.

The Maid’s face becomes sternly gentle as she calmly walks back to the riverbank. When she reaches him, she lifts a chill and callused hand to his cheek. The blood is not entirely gone from her wet hair and it runs down her face in pale, pink rivulets. He sees a drop fall from her jaw and watches it travel over the swell of a small breast, down towards the flat planes of her stomach, and beyond. He feels almost nothing until he looks back up to her face and sees the concern writ large there.

_She carries so much care in her._

“Don’t go back there just yet, Jaime.” Her voice is the warmest thing in this desolate world. “Wash first. Then we’ll speak.”

He nods and unclasps his now almost red cloak and she takes it from his hand, draping it over her right shoulder as she helps him out of his own armour. By the time she is done, she is shivering in the cold air as more snow begins to fall, feather light.

“I’ll leave your clothes to you,” she says simply, before walking back into the water, taking his cloak with her.

He notices a large blue bruise, one amongst many, blooming at the top of her thigh where he’d once marked her, before he shakes himself into movement.

Later, she listens to him as they sit by a tiny fire, their cloaks hung over nearby branches in an attempt to dry them. They’ve ended up sharing the horse blankets that Brienne had inadvertently stolen with the mounts they’ve been riding.

He speaks of his son as a father would, in a way he has never freely done before. He talks for some time, he thinks, but as his words begin to run out, he smiles ruefully. “This is foolishness. As if I was ever really a father.”

Silently, the Maid lays herself down, next to him. She reaches out her long fingers to grasp his stump, tugging at him until he joins her on the ground. She pulls the blankets back over them and gathers him, a little awkwardly, in her arms.

“Sleep, Jaime,” she says, her lips brushing against his forehead.

He does.

It is the first time that they ever share blankets in the night, however chastely.

He can’t know that it will be the first night of so many.

/-/-/-/-/

He is awake but silent, as she prepares a sleeping place for them. The cave is small, barely more than a rocky overhang, but at its rear the snow is shallow and she brushes it away with her boot to find the chill earth underneath. She packs the snow hard about the space, hoping to at least keep him out of any direct winds. She doesn’t know if she is doing the right thing. She has never encountered winter before. Not like this.

Brienne throws down the ragged furs and threadbare blankets they had found in an abandoned farmhouse, some days ago. They’d even found some large men’s clothing and Brienne had wondered, as she rummaged through a wooden chest, just how dishonourable stealing was if the man who owned these things was likely dead.

She grabs the horse blankets and pushes Jaime by the shoulder until he is by their makeshift bed. “I will see to the mounts. Lie down.”

She leaves him and walks out to their horses, tied nearby to a low-hanging branch. They are pleasantly docile, tractable animals, but even these strong, thickly haired garrons are suffering in the cold. They are nuzzling, deep in the snow, seeking out any vegetation they can find, though Brienne doesn’t think there is much to be found. She covers them with their blankets and gives them what care she can, little though it is. She wants to keep them alive for as long as she can.

When she returns to Jaime, he is still standing silently by their own meagre pile of furs and blankets.  She moves in front of him and grasps his arms. “Jaime, we must try to sleep, if only for a little while.” He allows Brienne to pull him down beside her, yet again, and she tries her best to cover them both.

Though they are a cloak short, tonight.

Her hand brushes over his fingers and they almost physically jolt her. They are like splinters of ice. Hers are cold, yes (when are they not, now?) but she suddenly realises what he has done. He has long since removed his stolen glove.

_Idiot!_

She knows what he is doing and why.

The reason is likely buried under snow by now, in his white cloak.

_The girl._

She pushes aside her own thoughts of this morning, of a poor, doomed child burned by the winter. Of a man with a dagger and a dreadful choice.

She won’t permit him to sacrifice his lone hand to needless guilt.

She will have none of it.

Brienne grasps Jaime’s wrist and forces his hand up, underneath her clothing, onto her waist. Her breath hisses out of her as his near frozen fingers brush over her flesh. When she is properly settled next to him, she clasps her large hand over his, so firmly that even the small distance of the layers of fabric between their cold fingers will not allow him to pull himself free.

It seems to stir Jaime, if only by the tiniest amount. He looks at her, vaguely but questioningly.

“You will _not_ do it, Jaime. I won’t _let_ you.”

His eyes flicker back into blankness, but then he tucks his head in, low against her shoulder.

/-/-/-/-/

She is clearly exhausted, since she hasn’t woken for two days and a night, as far as Jaime can read it. The Maid of Tarth is swaddled in his arms like a child, shaking as infection threatens to take her.

The bite of a wolf has turned bad, low on her hip.

The stubborn aurochs of a wench had walked with the hidden injury for two days before she’d looked at him, weakly muttering, “I have to _stop_.” Then she just toppled into the snow like a felled oak.

He dragged her to the meagre cover of some nearby rocks and was almost glad she wasn’t conscious when he had pulled down her breeches, he was so angry with her. “You told me it was nothing, woman. You _lied_ to me.”

In truth, she might not have been lying, at first. The wounds themselves were very small, but two days on and there was pus, the skin of her whole hip red with swelling and worrying heat.

Jaime knew what had to be done. He’d seen it, experienced it himself, but he was afraid. He had only his dagger and one shaking hand.

He made a tiny fire to boil some snow. There was no wine. He’d heard, once, that the boiling of water makes it better, though he isn’t sure how. But why else would women feel the need to have men folk boil so much of it, when one of them was labouring with child?

War had long since taught him that the hotly bubbling liquid couldn’t be poured directly onto skin, at least not to any good end, so he’d lifted the small pot from the fire and rested it in the snow when it was done.

He wondered where Qyburn was as he leaned forward to whisper firmly to the Maid of Tarth. “Listen to me this time, wench. Do what I say. Go away inside. Stay there. You do _not_ want to be here for this. Trust me. I _know_.”

So he squeezed out as much pus as he could, cutting away what he thought was rotten (he didn’t find much, he believed, he hoped) sluicing the wounds with the cooled water afterwards. The cleanest linen he could find was his own spare undershirt, so he cut away the sleeves, slicing one into small squares with Widow’s Wail, grasping its hilt unsteadily between his torso and his handless limb. He smiled ruefully at this paltry use of legendary Valyrian steel.

But as he moved back towards the Wench and looked at her prone form, twisted clumsily on the ground where he had moved her wound towards the light of the fire, he considered that perhaps it wasn’t such a poor use of it, after all.

He dressed the wounds as best he could, tying the small squares into place with the second sleeve, ignoring the feel of wiry blonde hair against his wrist as he passed it, awkwardly, around her inner thigh. “I’m sorry, my Lady,” he murmured to her, even though she couldn’t hear him.

Once her breeches were back in place, he wrapped her in their blankets and stood, looking into the small fire. “I did this in such poor light,” he said to himself shakily, dropping his head in disbelief. “With one bloody hand. This is ridiculous. I’m a maker of death, not life.”

So he found himself resorting to prayer, almost begging the Seven to make it so that he hadn’t just killed the Maid of Tarth, himself. After a while, he stopped and glanced towards the blankets with a smile.

_I only ever seem to pray for her._

“Idiot,” he laughed bitterly at himself.

And his wait began.

She called out his name so often, in her delirium, that he was left with no doubt as to the reason for her most unfortunate and undeserved name. Though the darker part of him felt a dreadful, unwanted and unwelcome sense of affirmation each time she cried it out.

He looked after Tansy, their lone remaining horse. He recalled teasing the Wench mercilessly when she’d named it so.

“You named your horse after moon tea?”

“What? No!” she’d almost barked at him, blushing. “I named her after a cook at Evenfall. She was nice to me. She used to give me extra slices of fruit pie when I was little.”

“Of course she did.”

Tansy’s companion, Rampant (and _how_ Brienne had snorted at his own choice), hadn’t quite proven to be so when the wolves came. They’d woken and fought the beasts off, but not in time to save the hairy little mount who had served them so well.

_I fell asleep during my watch. Like a green squire. Or an old fool._

He tried not to dwell on his own guilt too much.

Once the wolves had been scared away, Brienne led Tansy out of sight with Oathkeeper drawn as Jaime swiftly butchered as much meat from Rampant as he could with one hand, before the pack returned.

He apologises to both horses, as he eats near frozen chunks of meat from one of them.

And he waits.

So it is that she shivers in their blankets, in his arms.

Time is made long, and he finds his eyes drawn upwards, to the sky.

The canopy of stars above them is comforting and disturbing, in equal measure.

They are near unchanging, a certainty in a life made uncertain by winter. And by so much else.

But from moment to moment, their meaning seems to alter in his head; the sheer, warm familiarity of seeing them above fighting with a feeling of unknowable, shocking depth as more and more stars seem to appear before his eyes, the longer he gazes upwards.

Slowly, this sky begins to change even more, starting as weak bursts of light, almost as if the heavens themselves are uncertain.

He doesn’t believe his own eyes, at first, but soon he grows sure. There are flashes of colour, above.

There is only green to begin with and it makes him think of summer. It has been so long since he has seen verdant leaves on trees, in the afternoon sun. But this green is too light, too bright, to be true to the thought.

And then.

Then.

He starts to see blue and it is a blue so recognisable it almost blinds him. He has seen it every day, for so long now, in blue jewels bewilderingly set in the plain, homely face of another.

Jaime smiles.

The blue strands strengthen and grow, eventually becoming equal to their green counterparts, and they spar across the heavens. Wide bands of green and blue undulate, dancing across the sky, whirling and flowing with a grace he has never seen in this whole world. Occasional arcs of red join the fray, flashing along the edges.

_Like blood._

“Beautiful.”

The word sounds like it is being dragged through broken glass.

It is not his.

He looks down at the Maid of Tarth and she is awake. Alive. Seemingly aware.

A tight band seems to clench his heart as he catches her eyes and he thinks, for the slightest moment, that she’d been speaking of him, but he instantly knows this must be wrong.

“It is called an aurora. Or so my brother told me.”

She blinks a few times and then smiles at him before struggling out of her blankets. He tries to help her reposition herself as comfortably as she can.

It is a difficult process, finding a way that is easy enough for her. She ends up propped against his right side, half-laying, half-sitting. Jaime’s right arm holds her in place as she splays out her leg, adjusting it awkwardly a number of times before finding a relatively painless position for it to be in.

She moans lightly in discomfort, but then he sees her become distracted, picking at the material on her legs curiously. “These are not my breeches,” she rasps out.

He knows she can feel him shrug. They aren’t. It doesn’t matter. It never would. When he replies, he is merely being matter of fact. “You pissed clean through both of your pairs, wench.”

Even in this strange light, he can see her skin darken, but he forestalls any of her inevitable and pointless apologies by offering up the small pot of water resting in the snow at his side. She drinks thirstily and her voice is made all the easier for it. “I don’t suppose you’ve washed them?” She passes the pot back with a short nod of thanks. He places it back down beside him and covers them both with their blankets.

“Oh, I couldn’t,” he says then, airily waving his fingers in front of her face. “I only have one hand.”

She laughs, quietly and somewhat roughly, but openly, freely. “A feeble excuse, Ser Stumpy.”

He gapes and then pretends to glare at her, even as his handless arm folds in, a little tighter, around her waist. “I’ll let that go. Just this once. Because you’re ill. But never call me that again,” he almost hums into her ear, desperately trying not to laugh himself.

“And you remember that I did. _Just this once_.” She turns her eyes back to him and he can see she knows how much he has done for her of late. Of course she does. She has already done the same for him so many times over. She smiles at him shyly, teasingly. “It might convince you to do something useful around here.”

His smile is no less teasing. “You know, I sometimes miss that dour, strapping girl I met in the Riverlands. She had manners. Of a sort.”

She huffs and lets her head fall back onto his shoulder, directing her gaze upwards. “No, you don’t.”

Jaime smiles as his eyes follow hers higher. “No. I really don’t.”

For a few moments, they simply observe the aurora above them. “It is beautiful,” he says, quietly.

“Yes,” she whispers.

They fall into silence and watch, as the sky dances for them.

/-/-/-/-/

Their arrival at Castle Black is met with nothing short of open confusion. They are outlaws to the crown and they’ve been assumed dead, anyway. But the men and women desperately trying to defend the North are, for the most part, hardly shining beacons of justice themselves.

And they need good sword hands.

There is initially some sneering at the presumption of the woman who would fight at his side, at least amongst the southron warriors. But as they trudge back from their first engagement to find some rest, the jibes and the cruel name-calling are gone.

He grins at Brienne. “I think that shut them up rather effectively, don’t you?”

“How little you beautiful people know,” she says wryly. “The names won’t stop, Jaime. They _never_ stop.” A slow smile spreads across her face. “Now we just won’t have to listen to them.”

His own smile falls away, because she speaks with the weight of the experience of her whole life, and he doesn’t find it a happy thing.

/-/-/-/-/

They gather in the dreary courtyard, looking at the three remaining obsidian daggers that have been placed on the slushy cobbles, shining darkly in the torchlight.

A failed attempt to regain some territory (one that he had flatly opposed in the first place, due to the utter stupidity of the idea) has seen them lose almost all of the weapons that are actually useful here. Those that remain simply aren’t enough. They can’t hold back the horrors of the North with three small blades.

_This is fucking hopeless._

Having just crawled out from under their blankets, the wench lopes over to them, chewing on a dried strip of unidentifiable meat, her hair ridiculously askew. She glances at the faces of the men about her, all of them grim under beards and muck, and then she looks at the knives. The Maid of Tarth swallows and shakes her head, apparently in amusement, as she unbuckles her sword belt.

Then suddenly, before anyone can make a move to stop her, she grabs the scabbard of her priceless sword and drives the hilt down onto the nearest dagger, shattering it.

There are shouts of horror, but her voice cuts through the loud protests and curses thrown her way. “I don’t know what you’re all whining about. It seems to me we have at least twenty weapons here.” They all gape at her. “The dragons make the glass, not the blades, as I understand it. The blades are fashioned by men. Or women.” She reaches down and carefully picks up a small flake of dragonglass. “I would suggest you make a few lengthy spears,” she mildly offers, before turning and walking towards the forge.

Jaime laughs, even as he hears her muttering, “Men. Idiots.”

He chooses a small sliver of the shattered knife for himself and looks at the bemused faces of the defenders of Castle Black. “I think the Lady has the right of it,” he grins, following in Brienne’s footsteps.

He hears glass crack behind him, as he strolls away.

/-/-/-/-/

He does not know how long the Night lasts.

Time has no meaning here. It simply bleeds.

One skirmish runs into another. One death bleeds into the next.  One clash of swords slides into the one that follows. The cries of a man, sorely wounded, melt into those of the one inevitably carried off to the weary Maesters shortly after.

Neither of them has sustained a serious wound (yet, he thinks) but they have been stitched countless times. It sometimes feels as if they are doomed to die by a thousand cuts.

There is precious little opportunity for rest. They fall asleep side by side, often on the battlements under sackcloth and tattered furs, for almost no time at all. This is an arrangement that caused some bawdy amusement amongst the troops that surround them at first, especially after they realised that he does so tucking his hand under her tunic, resting it on the warmth of her skin. The mocking didn’t last long. They are always together, yes, but the only times they are alone are when they are pissing or shitting, and they sure as the seven hells don’t do that together. And she is hardly the embodiment of the love-struck maiden.

Sometimes he’ll find himself waking to a barely gentle nudge in his ribs, her boot telling him that it is time to fight. So it is, today.

“Get up, Jaime. There’s a breach in the east wall.”

The Others are here again.

They stand in the vanguard of the defence, as they normally do now during this Long Night. Their weaker arms hold dark-tipped daggers though his is, in fact, bound to the back of his ridiculous golden hand; for their shields are useless, providing no protection, nothing but tiring dead weight against these particular foes.

They fight by torchlight, large stakes holding flames driven into the frozen ground behind the defensive line serving as a minor deterrent to incursions. But there are fewer torches than there once were, as fuel and wood itself is beginning to run short. The only beds left in Castle Black are the frail pallets occupied by the wounded and even they are now lacking legs. This most northern stronghold has been entirely denuded of anything approaching the description of furniture. Even some of the upper floors of the towers have been stripped out and fashioned into arrows that fly in burning arcs through the endless night sky, or the torches that guard their backs in battle.

And _how_ they are forced to battle.

At first, Jaime and Brienne fight together, back to back, side on to the enemy and it makes his blood burn. It always does. They have fought this way since the Gates of the Moon, when after months of tiresomely frustrating practise his rising levels of skill met hers, something clicked between them and they meshed into a brutally efficient fighting force. It feels as natural as breathing. But these engagements, during the Long Night, are rarely short and he almost always tires first.

_I am getting old._

The wench unfailingly notices when his sword begins to slow. “Go,” she says and she widens her stance as he drops behind her and turns his back to the front line. It is risky, but mist can appear behind them despite the widely spaced torches, coalescing into a truly imminent threat, at any moment. So he can watch, the dagger strapped to his false hand always ready, even as he rests.

He swigs water from the pouch hanging from his belt and shakes out some of the aching and cramping in his muscles, panting as he recovers.

It is not too long until Brienne calls to him.

“Jaime!”

“Ready,” he shouts back.

“Left. Twelve feet. Ten. Now.”

They whirl around in unison and he takes her direction, bringing Widow’s Wail down through the Other that approaches them with a swift overhand slice. He can hear the woman behind him drawing in huge lungfuls of air as she takes her own rest, even as he settles himself back into violence.

She rejoins him in a short time and they fight together again. It is a pattern that repeats, over and over, until they are left almost blind with weariness. It doesn’t matter.

They must hold this ground.

They must.

In a moment, it changes. The Others drop into mist before them, almost as one, a mist that roils and moves rapidly towards the now distant tree line. Jaime looks up. For the last few nights, they have seen the skies begin to lighten, only to darken once more. It is beginning to become pale now. He glances at the faces around him.

There is an unbearable tension in the air as all of the living simply pray for sunrise. Perhaps this will be the day.

They watch and hope.

Slowly, a pallid, rose-hued light begins to dance along the surface of the Wall, making it glow to their left, coming ever closer.

It grows brighter.

The first rays of the sun seem to slice into their eyes and their host makes a strange, wonderful, moaning noise at the coming of dawn.

Except for the Maid standing at his side.

Brienne greets the sun with a roar that seems ripped from her gut, vast, echoing, and defiant with survival.

The scar on her face twists.

Her features are violently ugly, achingly radiant.

And on this morning, she is everyone who still lives.

She is life.

She roars again and on the horizon, dark, flying shadows seem to wail in response.

When she finally falls quiet, he nudges her playfully with his elbow. “Are you quite done?”

She laughs as she sheathes her dagger and he is sure it is the most musical sound he has ever heard, girlish and ecstatic. “The dragons will come. Not today, perhaps, but soon.” She reaches out and hauls him to her, uncharacteristically boldly, still giggling as she whispers her words into his neck. “Then I think we’ll _both_ be done.”

He laughs too. Hopelessly. Happily. With their swordless arms wrapped around one another, they rock back and forth in their elation.

It is true. There was never going to be any escape for them. They have run from the Stranger for so long, it almost feels as if they’ll both welcome him as an old friend. Neither of them cares, anymore. They will die, but men and women will go on living when they are gone.

_Summer is coming._

They let go of each other and simply bask in the quiet wonder of the weak warmth of this first daylight. But as the sun settles itself in to sleep again, beyond the horizon, a mere half of an hour after it rose, he looks at her. She senses it and looks at him, smiling. “We’re not done quite yet, though. Are you ready, Jaime?”

She hefts Oathkeeper deftly, the tiny shard of dragonglass banded to its tip comfortingly black in the twilight.

He nods, as he sees the light from newly ignited torches flicker over her skin. She is all teeth and freckles and tiredness.

He doesn’t care.

He looks into her eyes, those eyes, now dark blue as the mists begin to gather once more and the air again becomes fearsomely cold.

In this light, she is a beauty. And in this light, she truly is a knight.

“Oh, I’m ready, wench.”

/-/-/-/-/

They’d been allowed to travel from the Wall to Winterfell by themselves, but whilst it had been commonly thought they would make a break for freedom (with the unspoken blessing of many of those they’d fought alongside), they did no such thing. There was simply nowhere for them to go.

Their reunion with Pod and with Lady Sansa had, therefore, been bittersweet.

The Lady of Winterfell mothered them ceaselessly, making sure they had new woollen clothing and cloaks. She had their boots repaired for the long journey south and seemed to offer them around fifteen meals a day.

Brienne picks at the roasted meat on her plate during their last evening at the northern fortress, trying to politely will forth some appetite, when Jaime snickers next to her. “If those soldiers don’t arrive tomorrow morning, they won’t be able to get us out of Winterfell without knocking down the bloody walls. What war failed to fully achieve will be done by a plethora of dinners.”

Lady Sansa quietly sits down across from them as they chuckle into their wooden platters. She almost stammers as she quietly addresses them. “This is an awkward subject of which to speak, Ser. My Lady.” She curls her fingers together on the surface of the table. “It has been noticed you are both sharing Ser Jaime’s chamber.”

Brienne groans and drops her suddenly burning face into her hands. “Still a maid,” she manages to whisper from behind her fingers.

Jaime is almost scathing, to her left. “My Lady, we thank you for your concern, but the situation is this. We sleep very badly when we are apart. We sleep less badly when we are together. So that is what we do. _Sleep_.”

Brienne can hear that the young woman in front of them is clearly mortified. “I am sorry, Ser Jaime. I was just concerned for...”

“Her _reputation_?” Jaime spits out, his patience almost gone. “What will that matter, when we are dead? For we _will_ be dead soon, my Lady. And then our reputations will be wrought by other people. Probably not fairly, in Brienne’s case.”

Brienne looks up as Sansa’s eyes start to fill with water and she scowls at the man beside her. “Jaime. Stop upsetting her. It isn’t fair.”

“I know, Brienne,” he says, sounding tired. “But if we had a gold dragon for every time one of us has had to say ‘still a maid’ during this godsforsaken war, we could’ve bought the Iron Bank itself by now.” He looks at the young woman they had returned home. “I’m sorry, Lady Sansa. If it makes you feel any better, I will promise you that Lady Brienne will end our journey as she started it. Unbesmirched. Untouched. A bloody maid. For all that is worth. And for all that my word is worth,” he finishes, his tone bitter.

Brienne feels struck in the chest, so she pushes her plate away and stands. “I think I shall go to _my_ chamber. Goodnight, Ser. Goodnight, my Lady.”

She holds her head high as she leaves the Hall, but she is utterly despondent as she strides across the yard. She does not need to be reminded by _him_ that she is frankly untouchable.

The sound of girlish feet pitter-patter behind her and she turns to find Sansa running in her direction, the merest swish of her skirts showing more elegance than the whole of Brienne has managed in an entire lifetime. She composes herself as the young woman comes to a halt in front of her, nearly breathless as she wrings her hands against her dark, plain bodice.

“I wanted to apologise again, Brienne. I did not wish to offend you.”

“There’s no need for an apology, Sansa. As the Lady of Winterfell, you have the right to question anything that happens here. Particularly anything that might be disreputable.”

“I had just thought...the way that you look at each other...”

“It is simply that. Never anything more.”

The young woman’s eyes grow wide and sad. Brienne finds it astonishing that Sansa, who suffered so grievously during the course of the war, should still find any place in her thoughts for childish ideas of romance. “I’m so sorry for you both,” Sansa whispers.

Brienne smiles. “I’m not.” As she takes her leave, she knows she isn’t lying. For all that she yearns for Jaime with her every waking moment, she would not risk losing him, or his friendship.

Not for anything.

As soon as she reaches her chamber, Brienne changes into the nightshift that had been offered to her when she arrived. She, however, is no normal woman, so even though it is larger than average, she finds it tight in some places and loose in others, not to mention it being almost indecently short on her. It doesn’t matter. It serves.

She crawls under her blankets and waits for sleep. It takes its time in coming.

When she wakes in the morning though, Jaime is there, his body shaped to her back and his hand on her waist. She can feel his lips resting, unmoving, on the nape of her neck and his hardened cock against her. She smiles as she thinks back to the only words he’d ever spoken to her on the matter, on the Kingsroad. “Don’t worry, wench. That’s normal. It happens every morning.” She’d believed, for a moment, that there had been something evasive in his eyes that day, but Brienne knows better than to allow herself to give in to flights of fancy.

She lies perfectly still, basking in the feel of him for a while, enjoying the low thrum that the closeness of him always brings deep inside of her. But this morning it is slightly off kilter. She sighs in near silence.

_Not today._

She disentangles herself from Jaime as gently as she can. As she stands, she looks down and grimaces at the light spatter of marks on her shift. Her moon’s blood is upon her.

She goes to the washbowl, removes her smallclothes and cleans herself with firm strokes of a damp cloth, shivering slightly in the cold morning air. As she rinses the cloth in the bowl, she glances back towards the bed, only to find Jaime wide awake, looking at her. She pushes away a sudden stab of embarrassment. They know each other too well for such girlishness.

There is no lewdness in his gaze. It is open, slightly curious. He tips his head, indicating the cloth in her hand. “A good day for it.”

“Very funny, Jaime,” she chides.

“Are you well supplied?” Women who flow lightly, as she does, often just let themselves bleed in their skirts, the many layers concealing the stains. The only disadvantage to wearing breeches, that Brienne has ever found, is the necessity of stuffing extra cloth into her smallclothes at this time.

_Better that than a dress._

She reaches out and pats the small pile of plain cloth on the table. “Sansa saw to it.”

Jaime snorts. “Of course she did. She’s turned out rather well, all things considered, hasn’t she? If a tad interfering.”

Brienne nods and lifts the washbowl up and out of the unglazed window. “Look out, below!” she shouts half-heartedly, tipping the pale pink water out without even the tiniest of polite delays. Jaime grins at her as they wait, just in case.

“Cunting horse piss!” is the call that echoes up from the yard. Or so she believes. Jaime doesn’t seem quite so certain. “Horse piss or whore’s piss?” he chuckles.

Brienne shrugs, refilling the bowl with clean water from the large jug on the table. “I’m not sure I care. Anyone who stands below bedchamber windows at this time of day is an idiot.”

She turns back to Jaime as he rises from the bed wearing just his breeches. He is a little bruised and battered, but her breath catches for the space of a heartbeat.

_He’s all God, these days. Ridiculous man._

She can see the edge of now familiar black humour that has developed between them over time, beginning to play in his eyes before he even ventures it. “Do you think they’ll put our heads on spikes next to each other?”

“I hope so,” she smiles. “I would consider that a good end.”

He bows. “Well then, Lady Brienne of Tarth, would you like my head to accompany your head to the walls of King’s Landing?”

She curtsies, very ill, all poor co-ordination and indecorously exposed knees. Septa Roelle would be appalled, though not just at her lack of ladylike manners, she would venture to guess. “Very much so, Ser Jaime Lannister.” She flicks her eyes down to her stained shift. “When I’m dressed, of course.”

They look at each other for long moments and they each know that they are both thinking the same thing.

_This is the last time we will ever be alone together._

He simply steps forward, reaches out and gathers her to him. She doesn’t react at first, but after his arms are firmly wrapped about her she slowly brings her own up to hold him too.

Brienne doesn’t know how long they stand there and doesn’t care.

There is so much to think of.

Of his body, warm against hers.

Of a bearpit and dead children.

Of lost flesh and bone.

Of the song of steel on steel and the sound of axes, splitting the wood of ancient tables for burning.

Of blood. So much blood.

Of a chill that filled them endlessly, unhindered by always damp leather and wool.

Of a battle that raged for three nights, the only respite a few hours of weak sunlight every day as fire warring with ice, arcing across the skies, laid waste to so much of the earthbound world of men.

Of a crippled knight, a man supposedly without honour, regaining it by holding a desperately weakened force together, leading it to victory even as men fell around them like wheat to a scythe. The very far north has been left desolate, but it will recover.

Of the sharing of a last, small bread roll, torn into three pieces in the Riverlands.

Of…

“Thank you, Brienne,” Jaime mutters into her neck.

_For everything._

She can finish it for him, for she knows he is not being specific. If they went into details, they would be standing here for years. She replies in kind. “Thank you, Jaime.” Then she tilts her head back and peers down at him. “You should go. Things are bad enough for us already, but if news got back to King’s Landing that you had to be chained in my chamber whilst I stood here in a bloodied shift…”

“The Kingslayer’s Whore to everyone in the world,” Jaime says, lifting his stump to rest against her face, his voice tender. “ _Except_ the Kingslayer.”

She drops her forehead to his as they both laugh softly at the strangeness that is them, but then the sound of clattering hooves comes up from the yard and they freeze, green eyes locked with blue, wide in a panic they can show to nobody else.

_This is the end._

They step away from each other, straightening their backs, taking some time to regain their composure.

“That’ll be us, then,” Jaime finally says, matter-of-factly.

 _“Done,”_ she whispers, smiling.

She watches him move to pick up his tunic and put it on. As he shakes his head free and shoves his arms into place, he speaks quietly. “I’ll pray for you, Brienne.”

She can feel her brow furrowing at him. “You _don’t_ pray, Jaime.”

He avoids her gaze until he has picked up his boots and is opening the door. The look he sends her then is so full of bared truth it pierces her chest. “I pray for _you_.”

Then he is gone and she can’t move, though her hands are shaking.

/-/-/-/-/

“Go, Pod. I’ll send word when it’s safe.”

The young man nods, though all three of them know she is lying.

He moves to leave, but turns back around to Jaime and reaches out his left hand. The knight at her side shakes it warmly as the squire speaks; his eyes tearful. “Thank you for coming to get me, Ser Jaime. In the Riverlands.”

Jaime shakes his head and answers softly. “In truth, Pod, I didn’t go into that cave for you.”

Brienne’s heart stutters painfully, even as Pod wanly rustles up a smile. “I know, Ser. If it had been the other way round, I wouldn’t have gone into the cave for you, either. But thank you, all the same.”

Then she is rocked as Podrick Payne collides with her and flings his arms around her body, all of his youthful hopes of maintaining his manly stoicism gone. “Ser. My Lady. Thank you so much.”

He is close to crying, and Brienne forces herself not to follow him.

He’d begged to be allowed to come with them, but Brienne is immovable on the matter. There’s no way under the newly born sun she’d allow her dear boy to share the fate she and Jaime have freely chosen.

So she lifts his head and smiles at him. “Pod. Dearest Pod. Be brave. I know you can do that. I’ve seen it. Serve your new Lady. She is a good woman. And she is the wife of your old Lord, after all. This is your place now.”

Pod looks up her, his eyes brimming, and nods with the utmost seriousness.

“Now go to the kitchens, as the Lady Sansa ordered. There is a spit waiting to be turned, at least until we leave.”

“Yes, Ser. My Lady.” With one last, brief hug, Pod is gone, almost sprinting away from them, trying desperately hard to avoid having others see him cry.

Brienne knows she, herself, is close to breaking, but then reassuring fingers curl over her shoulder.

“He’ll do well here, Brienne.”

She drops her head. “I know.”

They stand in silence for a while as Brienne struggles with her emotions. She will miss young Pod most keenly, though it is clear to her that his safety and future are best secured here at Winterfell. That knowledge, however, doesn’t make this parting any easier.

She comes back to herself as more prisoners gather about them. There aren’t many, barely half a dozen, but there is a sense of weary acceptance amongst them all. She shares brief nods with a few who had fought alongside them in the North and looks at Jaime. He shrugs at her, but doesn’t speak. He doesn’t have to. She can almost hear him.

_Ready for our final journey, wench?_

She grins at him as the guards approach their little group, bearing the shackles that will bind them. They are restrained and taken across to the gate in pairs.

Jaime and Brienne are the last prisoners to be chained. Brienne watches the guards send over a clearly terrified young squire to do so, laughing at the poor thing as he approaches them, shaking. He can hardly have seen his tenth nameday and no doubt has been told the more ghastly tales of the Kingslayer and the Maid.

She glances at Jaime, who is simply livid, glaring at the men across the courtyard. “Well, aren’t they just fucking charming?” he says to her quietly, his lips unmoving. “I wish we had our swords.”

She bites back a laugh and looks at the freckled youngster with warmth, speaking gently.

“What is your name, little one?”

“Daryk,” he whispers.

“There’s no need to be afraid, Daryk. We won’t harm you, or try to escape.”

The boy comes forward and Brienne holds out her hands to be shackled. As the metal is locked into place, she smiles softly at him. “I don’t think there’s any disguise in the world we could use, even if we did.”

Daryk nods shyly in agreement as Jaime shoves her shoulder with his. “We could dress you as a bear.”

She thinks for a long moment, before smiling sweetly at him. “And we could dress you as a pretty but careworn Lady, in a gown with those stupidly long sleeves that people seem to like.”

He gapes at her, even as his own shackles are put on. _“Careworn?”_

She laughs. “You are such a woman.”

He ignores her and looks down at the boy, sliding his stump straight back out of its restraint. Daryk jumps as Jaime pats him gently on the head with his freed limb. “I think you’ll need to chain my elbows as well, lad,” he says kindly.

The boy nods again and scampers off to get some chains and she watches Jaime trying to put the cuff back on his wrist as it hangs freely in the air.

“What are you doing?” she groans and turns to him, reaching out to slip the iron band back into place. “Ser Jaime Lannister. The feared knight. The Tamer of the North. The idiot. You could’ve held it steady with your hand.”

“I know,” he grins. “But you haven’t done anything useful for days and I don’t want you getting lazy.”

“The chance would be a fine thing,” she huffs. “I think I’ve spent more time washing clothes in this war, than I did fighting. _Your_ clothes.”

He lifts his wrists and points at the empty space where his right hand once was, shaping his features into the most outlandishly exaggerated look of sadness she has ever seen.

“So you really _are_ a woman!” she says. They are both chuckling again, even as Daryk returns to restrain his elbows and lead them both to the other prisoners, near the gate.

A short while later and the assembled column starts to move.

“Oh, well,” Jaime says. “Time for another long walk in the woods.”

She sighs. “I wish there were a little less snow.”

“I just hope they don’t tie us to trees,” he says, grimacing.

She looks over him, at the multitude of tiny scratches covering his skin as a result of his recent visit to the Godswood. “Only _you_ could annoy the trees that much, Jaime. _The trees.”_

“Do be quiet, wench,” he smiles at her, as they pass through the gates of Winterfell, starting out on the road to their deaths.

“No,” she lightly replies.

/-/-/-/-/

The hours in the darkness seem endless, even after he’s grown accustomed to the stench of filth and it no longer makes him retch up the musty water that is occasionally lowered into his cell.

In fact, the absence of vomiting has just made this whole experience duller.

He has spoken to no-one since silent, eastern guards had dragged him down from the courtyard of the Red Keep to the dungeons. They refused to speak to him, leaving both his query about the remarkably swift repair of the keep and his more deliberately provoking questions about the openness of their mothers’ legs entirely unanswered.

He hasn’t been fed in what must surely be days, so it may be that this will be the manner of his end. He doesn’t think so, though. He had always imagined his death, as the Kingslayer, to be somewhat more abundant in public humiliation than this method would allow. _I have felt far worse pain than hunger._ Even if the cramps beginning to stab in his stomach and his tongue watering, almost tingling, at the merest thought of food seem to disagree.

He distracts himself with thoughts and memories.

He thinks of his sister; of times spent, their bodies locked in passion, of a love that he had once thought incomparable, unbreakable and impossible to eclipse. He wonders at the changes between them. At how his feelings had altered, how the unending fight for an iron chair had become all for Cersei and even less than it ever was to him. He thinks wistfully of the young girl he would have died for, a beauty once so carefree, who grew into a Queen, embittered by experience and fearing for the fates of her children.

_Always her children. Never mine. Not until she allowed it to be known._

He thinks of his dead sons and his living daughter. Cersei was right. There is nothing he can do for Myrcella now, but Tyrion had made it clear, as they rode back to King’s Landing, that he would use all of his increased power to ensure her safety. He knows that his relationship with his sister is one thing which is unlikely to be judged, at least by Queen Daenerys. It would be an odd circumstance indeed, for a Targaryen to question such a thing.

But he still sees the blood flowing from his sword, as if he had only slain the Mad King yesterday. The richest blood of all. The blood for which he will surely have to give his own.

_It has been a long time coming._

And only one person in the whole world will ever have known why.

He thinks of her, most of all.

_Brienne._

The woman, the maid who had begun instructing him in the reality of honour when she was, herself, barely more than a girl.

She hadn’t even known she was teaching him, but over the years she has given him so much that he doesn’t believe that even his father ever owned enough gold to repay Jaime’s debt to her.

_Not that she would take it, anyway. Stubborn wench._

A shining blade arcs upwards again and again. An astounding headbutt connects with the nose of a man who would rape her. The tucking of extra blankets over a young Pod, as he sleeps. The roar of a true warrior at the rebirth of day. A parting in a ruined tower. Her breath dampening his beard as she sleeps. Her patience as, in the face of his incessant cursing and insults, she returns the bite to the sword of a crippled lion. Dancing with blades, in a way neither of them ever have, with any other. Countless moments flow through his head and they all give him warmth, though there is little enough to be found in this damp place.

_I hope, more than anything, that she still lives._

He rests his hand on his waist, under his now ruined clothing, trying to fool himself into believing that the skin under his fingers is not his own; that the fine web of scarring he can feel there is not his to bear and that the unblemished patches of flesh he touches are covered in a sparse dusting of pale freckles. He draws some comfort from the idea.

And he waits.

At great length, the door above him opens and Jaime looks up, only to be blinded by the light of a solitary torch. The voice that calls down to him slows the sudden thumping of his heart that belies his conscious avoidance of concern about his own fate.

“Hello, Jaime.”

He smiles and speaks, his own voice rough with lack of use but sardonic as he returns the greeting. “Hello, brother. Thanks for visiting me. I’m really enjoying the charms of this well- equipped little oubliette your Queen has seen fit to keep me in. Do you know I have a bucket for drinking water and one to crap in? It’s positively luxurious down here. Though truthfully, the view is fucking _terrible_.”

Tyrion lets out a sharp snort of amusement. “I’m glad to find you in relatively good spirits, brother mine. Reach out your hand. I have permission to give you some food.” Jaime does so and in moments a small cotton sack drops into his outstretched palm. He pulls the long string attached to it off with his teeth so it can be lifted away, but ignores the strong physical urge to eat this very moment.

“Is she still alive?” he bluntly asks. He doesn’t even pretend that his brother won’t know who he is asking after.

Tyrion’s tone is flat, serious. “I’m absolutely forbidden to say, Jaime. I’m sorry.”

He stares up at the light, but his brother is a blurred shadow and Jaime can’t discern his features.

_I will go to my death not knowing if she lives._

“I see. So the new Queen has a liking for punishing the mind as well as the body. Will I die here?”

His usually loquacious sibling struggles to speak, strangling out a lone syllable before his voice is gone. “I…”

Jaime grins towards the light. “You can’t say. Don’t worry, Tyrion. I understand. Will you at least be coming by to see me, again?”

“That I can promise, Jaime. Though I am unlikely to be much more conversational than I’ve been today.”

“You can always tell me about your latest whore.”

The shadow of Tyrion leans over the hole above him, chuckling. “Do you want to know the truth, Jaime? I don’t currently _have_ one.”

“And I thought _I’d_ changed,” Jaime quips. “Be careful not to wear your sword hand out, little brother,” he continues as he drops to sit in one of the few, relatively clean areas he had managed to find against a wall. “In my experience, it takes a good while to get used to using the other one.”

Tyrion laughs. “I will see you soon, brother mine,” he says as the door is closed and Jaime is plunged into complete darkness again. He fumbles at the bag on his lap. There is cheese, some meat and a still warm bread cob. It is made from coarse flour, but as he bites into it, he thinks it the best thing he has ever tasted.

His brother’s following visit is shorter, with only a hastily lowered food bag and a short burst of words. “I can’t stay, Jaime. But please, if you are asked to do something, just do it. Trust me on this. _Please_.” He barely has time to nod towards the torchlight before darkness covers him once more.

The next time he sees light, it isn’t his brother who brings it.

He is hauled back up out of the black pit and dragged along the corridors towards the Throne Room. He can hardly see, but he hears what is going on inside it before he reaches the door. It all sounds quite celebratory.

“So this is to be the way of it,” Jaime grins darkly to himself as the door to the chamber holding the Iron Throne swings open.

_It is time for a Kingslayer to be judged._

/-/-/-/-/

Jaime sits on his straw mattress, his head bowed as he listens to the muffled moans coming from the tent next to his own. A kind voice can be heard, battling the night terrors of the Evenstar.

A voice that isn’t his.

His mood is bleak.

_I can do nothing for her. Not now. Not ever again._

They’d accepted the restrictions placed on them by the Dragon Queen freely, but it is only in practice that the scale of his punishment (and _hers_ , he thinks bitterly, for it is hers that seems unjust) has become so terribly clear. He is sure that the personal restrictions tied to position of the Evenstar would not have been enacted, were it not for him.

He wants to be the one to comfort Brienne. His fingers, both real and ghostly, itch to stroke her hair and talk to her, to help her fight the shadows that haunt her when she sleeps.

But he can only listen as the cries of the woman he loves ebb away into the night.

After she quietens, he pulls back his blankets, readying himself for an attempt at sleep, but before he lays himself down, the canvas of the tent flap opens.

He looks up to find the little woman there. Lolla is so short that she can stand in his temporary home, and he watches her fold her arms over her breasts as she speaks to him, her voice short. “What happened to my Enni, Ser Jaime?”

“Nothing particularly good,” he replies.

He is so tired that he barely registers the concern on her face as she comes and sits herself down next to him. Uninvited, of course. “She says your name. A lot.”

“At least she’s stopped calling me an idiot. Wait a moment. No, she hasn’t stopped doing that.” Even as the dry words fall from his lips, he is aware that they are unconvincing. He knows his feelings are already clear to this shrewd woman.

Lolla has the good grace to ignore him, but her next two words cut him as surely as if she bore a blade. “Her face?”

They both watch him flex his remaining fingers. “An escaped murderer called Biter. Utterly mad. Pointed teeth.” He almost sighs. “I’m sorry, I don’t know any more than that, Lolla. I wasn’t with her, then.”

_I should have been. Or I should never have sent her on a damn foolish quest alone._

Lolla struggles with her next question. Three times she tries to speak and nothing comes out, until she stutters, “Was she…raped?”

“No. Or so she has told me.” He looks at the older woman reassuringly. “Though I don’t think she would still be calling herself the Maid of Tarth, if it were so. She almost was. Twice, as far as I know. The first time, I was with her, though I was tied to a tree.” He grimaces at the memory of Brienne’s wails as she tried to fight off the Goat’s men. “So I lied about why this is called the Sapphire Isle.”

“Clever boy,” Lolla says, her eyes warm.

“Not really, Lolla,” he says dryly. “That lie ended up landing her in a bear pit, after the other try.”

“Oh, my poor little one,” Lolla sighs. But then she shifts next to him and looks up, curiously. “Wait, the bear pit _happened?”_

He lifts his hand to his throat. “The scars on her neck. And some others.”

“She has so many scars now.” After a moment of quiet sadness, Lolla’s brow furrows. “Jaime, did you _really_ save her from the bear?”

Jaime finds it amusing that even this practical, down to earth woman has been taken in by whatever outrageous and colourful versions of events the mummers are peddling, these days. He shrugs. “After a fashion. I jumped in, unarmed. Well, one-armed. I had absolutely no plan, but it all worked itself out. Somehow.”

“I heard the tale, but I didn’t believe it. It all sounded too _heroic_. For…”

“The Kingslayer?” he grins down at her. “Believe me when I say to you it was nothing of the sort. Don’t tell our dear Evenstar I said so, but it was frankly idiotic.”

They sit in comfortable silence for a little while, until Lolla does something that shocks Jaime entirely. She reaches out her small left hand and places it gently on his scarred stump. He almost flinches away from the contact, expecting revulsion, but there is nothing more in her tone than simple care as Lolla asks, “What about _you_?”

He looks at her, dumbstruck, for some time. But then he forces himself to answer her. “The same night as the first attempted rape.”

Dark eyes widen in shock. “Because of it? Because you stopped them?”

“ _No_ , Lolla,” he says, as certain now as he always has been on the matter. “This would’ve happened anyway.  Our chief captor had a peculiar fondness for lopping off extremities. If not that night, it would’ve happened the next, or the next. He hated the rich and powerful with an absolute passion. And at that point I was extraordinarily rich and powerful, theoretically at least, even if a certain young lady of our acquaintance had recently been pulling me across Westeros on a leash.”

They both chuckle quietly before Jaime continues. “There is also, of course, the fact that I have an errant mouth that tends to run away with itself and offend people at every opportunity. But I’m sure that had _nothing_ to do with it.”

Lolla smiles and then softly pats his scarred arm. “It must’ve hurt so much, Jaime.”

He can’t think too seriously about it. Not right now. “‘Twas but a scratch, I assure you.”

“Liar,” she suddenly grins. “Did you moan like a babe missing its mother’s breast?”

“I think Brienne’s words were, ‘You sound like a bloody woman.’”

“Really?” The little woman looks at him, all disbelief.

“Yes, Lolla. But then, she’s been calling me a woman, occasionally, since the third day of our very first glorious traipse across Westeros. I may have mentioned her manly shoulders once too often, so she threatened to drag me back to King’s Landing in a _dress_.”

Lolla giggles. “She didn’t actually…”

“No, Lolla. Though she might have, had we a dress with us at the time.” He laughs faintly. “I was unrelentingly awful to her, back then. I actually asked her if she’d ever fucked a horse, once.” Lolla gasps, outraged, but Jaime just winks at her. “Do you think it strange that we both look back on those days with fondness, now?”

“I suppose not,” she says, though there is an edge of stern reprimand to her gaze that Jaime fancies would be quite fierce in the full light of day. But then that gaze softens. “Enni wouldn’t have made it through without you, would she?”

He shakes his head, perfectly seriously. “Nor I, without her. Truly, Lolla, you can have no idea of it. Brienne saved me. So many times. More than I did her, I think.”

Lolla regards him for long moments, the weight of her look heavy upon him. He can see warm pride for her Little One and perhaps even some for him. The thought of _that_ is almost unbearable. He has spent all of his adult life as an object of scorn and he simply doesn’t know how to accept anything else. Not from a virtual stranger. So he does what he always tends to do, when things rattle him. He speaks. “She has never saved me from a bear though, so none of hers count.”

Lolla laughs and gets uncomfortably back up to her feet. “And to think I was worried about you.” She stands in front of him, round and short, and lifts a hand to his cheek. “Thank you for bringing her home, Ser Jaime of Tarth.”

Jaime smiles. “Thank you for accepting me, Lolla. You don’t realise how rare a thing that is.”

She taps the end of his nose with her finger and turns away. “How could I not? You’re a little aged, for my tastes, but you’re so _pretty_.”

“Leave that poor boy Kholo alone, old woman!” he hisses at her, as she nearly trips over his discarded tunic.

She rights herself and leaves, damn near cackling as the tent flap drops closed behind her.

/-/-/-/-/

Brienne knocks on the door of the bedchamber of the Tamer of the North and waits for him to bid her to enter. Normally she wouldn’t bother, but she is nervous and wants a few extra moments to gather herself.

She hears his acknowledgement and goes in. He is sitting on the bed and looks up at her quizzically. Then he groans. “You _knocked_ and your features are topped by your most fearsome eyebrows, my Lady Evenstar. Bad news, I take it?”

She nods and doesn’t delay in her reply. “The Lady Myrcella has been bastardized by the remaining Baratheons. They have taken her name from her.”

He rises to his feet, suddenly sharply furious and Brienne speaks again, attempting to reassure him as he strides over to his window. “Your brother is trying to persuade the Queen to allow him to legitimize her under his name. He is confident he will be successful.”

She watches Jaime reach out and grip the cold stone of the windowsill. His back is turned to her, but she can see the tension in the set of his shoulders, in the whiteness of his knuckles.

She stays silent and considers his position. He has rarely spoken of his children at all, but when he was telling her of Tommen, he’d mentioned that he used to long for them to share his name. This cruel, though perhaps understandable, action of the House of Baratheon and its effects on an innocent young woman aside, she wonders how hurtful it must be to know that his lone surviving child may now end up bearing the name he has had severed from him as surely as his sword hand. 

After some time, he turns to her and leans back against the stonework.

“Where is she?” His voice is clipped.

“Still in Dorne, staying as an honoured guest.” She smiles, trying to offer some small comfort. “They have a pleasantly forgiving opinion of such things.”

He tilts his head solemnly before a small smile tips up the corner of his own lips. “I remember a time when you wouldn’t have thought such opinions pleasant.”

She shrugs and speaks plainly. “Now I know better.”

/-/-/-/-/

He is sweating. He is shaking. His skin is deathly pale.

She is familiar with his dreams.

He is in the North once more.

On the Kingsroad.

_The girl._

_Shara._

She thinks he is back in the cave, after Shara. Or even with her.

She reaches out to him, running her fingers through his hair, as she had done that night, to try and calm him. This attempt fails as poorly as the very first.

She takes a deep breath as he starts to flail and reaches out; grasping his hand and placing it on her waist, over her shift, covering her fingers with his so he can feel her warmth. He begins to settle, but then he does something new.

He wakes.

His eyes flicker open and after a moment of confusion, he takes in his hand and her and the open wooden panel in the corner of the chamber.  He looks up at her and all she can see is dark green in the low candlelight.

“You’ve done this before?” he asks, his voice unsteady.

She nods, shyly.

She sees him take a moment to gather his thoughts. And then, he sees. “So this was Lolla’s room?”

“When I was a child, yes.”

“Who helps _you_ , now?”

“No-one,” she whispers.

She watches Jaime roll his head to see the heavy, wooden chair she has braced against the door. “Well then, my Lady. Could we get a lock for this chamber?”

Brienne smiles. “Yes.”

/-/-/-/-/

She has loved him for so long now, that it no longer drives her. Things just aren’t that simple. Not for them. Love isn’t something she reaches out towards, something for which she has to aim for or strive to find. The threads of him are so tightly woven throughout her life that it is already everywhere.

And Fallsong, whilst liberating, has only proven to make things more difficult between them.

There is a great comfort in knowing that she is wanted, possibly even desired, but this knowledge is a double-edged sword. They have to fight even harder not to act.

She is the one who retreats, who draws a further line in the sand that cannot be crossed. A silent agreement is forged between them. They have long since settled into the awkward scenario of never touching one another, except for when one of them is distressed in sleep.

But now she covers herself constantly, using cloth as another barrier between them. It had never been needful, before Fallsong. Their bodies are almost as familiar to each other as their own. But if they can’t be together (and they can’t, they just can’t) then they mustn’t see each other’s flesh either.

Self-discipline must override temptation.

So conversations that used to happen in various states of undress now only happen when one of them has their back turned. She doesn’t dare to think of him, in times past, when they bathed together, or even on the mornings after she has seen him, half-clothed in uneasy sleep.

Instead, she carries one beautiful, painfully repeated moment with her everywhere, inevitably thinking of it in those rare moments when her mind is unbusy.

Waking to his still lips on the nape of her neck.

/-/-/-/-/

In a flash of blue, something changes for him.

He has longed for her for years now, for a greater time than he will even admit to himself.

A central thought of his life, every day, is that he wants her trembling under his fingers, his tongue, or on his cock, until she cries out his name. He spends many a night stroking himself, alone, sometimes only needing to think of his Wench kissing him to end it, as he quietly groans out her name. But he would be lying if he said he hadn’t taken a long time to find her attractive, or that he had noticed any parts of her other than her eyes at all well, until he began to know her as a person.

Now there are countless parts of her he desperately wants to explore, but that only ever began because he loved the heart of Brienne of Tarth first.

Perhaps, even before he actually began to know it. He remembers his reaction to her at Harrenhal, despite his unwelcome giddiness at the time.  He has seen her in dresses (most of them spectacularly ill-fitted) and in breeches with loose, flowing tunics. He has seen her in her nightshifts and in armour. He has seen her in her smallclothes and the Gods know he has seen her naked many more times than would be considered even remotely proper for a maiden, even if he were a woman.

But she walks into the Great Hall of Evenfall in a pair of achingly soft, silky looking blue trews and his mind unfuses.

They flow down all the way from her waist (his fingers grow warm) like a waterfall and he tilts his head watching the material ripple around the muscles of her thighs.

_How did I not notice her legs are that damned long?_

He is assailed by an image of everybody else being simply gone, leaving just him and Brienne and one of these terribly convenient looking tables. He can almost feel those strong thighs holding him, rubbing rhythmically over his hips, moving back and forth as he fucks her, and he is shocked by his sudden hardness, by this wave of sheer and overwhelmingly physical need.

Even though it has happened to him before. He knows this urge. He simply did not expect to ever feel it again. He is old.  It is a feeling he remembers all too well though, from his younger years. When he felt it for another, so often, the one he loved so very much with all of his heart, but the one he hasn’t wanted for so long because he had the temerity to change and see, to long for, something different.

_And someone different._

It is a stunning bolt of pure, animalistic lust.

He swallows, a little uncomfortably, slowly letting out a long, silent breath as he turns his attention firmly back to the groom. “I’m sorry, Fredrick, I was distracted for a moment. You were saying?”

/-/-/-/-/

At first, his grief is all-consuming.

For hours, perhaps days, he can’t think of anything, other than her name.

_Cersei. Cersei. Cersei._

It howls through his blood and seems to ache in the very marrow of his bones.

_We came into the world together. We were supposed to die together._

He knows they will have heard him, so he shuts himself away from everyone.

Even Brienne. Especially Brienne.

The Maid of Tarth’s acceptance of his past, her patience and utter lack of judgement only serve to remind him that he was the one who really moved on. That he was the one to truly find someone else, no matter that Cersei had wounded him so sorely when she’d taken others to her bed.

He feels disloyal. For all that he had only ever lain with Cersei, his years of war and banishment have surely taught him that the physical doesn’t mean a thing. Jaime now knows that it is the mind that matters. Yes, he longs to touch another every day, even if he hasn’t. But although his sister could’ve marched whole barracks of soldiers through her bedchamber, for all he is aware, he doesn’t know if her mind ever turned from him as surely as his had from her.

He thinks of the note he burned.

_I love you. I love you. I love you._

His grief is coloured by guilt when he realises that Cersei might not have been lying. She was desperate, without a doubt. But now he will never know if she meant it.

He thinks of their youth, when everything had seemed simpler and Cersei was glorious. Of awkward fumblings and the strangeness of kissing and of her golden hair, caught in the breezes of Casterly Rock, as she smiled.

He thinks of the dark days of her marriage, when her thrill at her wedding turned into the despair of competing with the shade of one of the dead. Of years when they could openly admit to loving one another, at least as siblings, albeit that a father was always an uncle.

_Three parts deception to two parts truth._

He stares at his stump, laid in front of him on his bed, for many hours, his eyes following the tracery of scars left by the harsh but effective ministrations of Qyburn.

The ever present reminder of the single moment in his life that changed everything. And not just for him.

_For Cersei, as well. It is when I stopped being her strength and started being her weakness._

He thinks of her isolation, in her latter days, their sons dead, their lone daughter injured, kept far away, and all of Cersei’s hard won influence lost, even if he never quite understood her need for it.

His heart aches for her sadness.

_Such a love never entirely goes away. The shadows of it will always remain._

The Kingslayer weeps until his eyes are sore.

_Cersei is dead._

And he weeps more.

He is mourning the loss of a sister, a lover, the mother of his children, and for the possibilities of paths never taken.

Finally, his tears fail him.

_Surely there can be no more?_

He is numb.

But then an Evenstar comes back to him and kneels quietly in her metal, at his bedside.

She reminds him of the worst time. _“Jaime. I do not kill children. I never have.” Well I do, brother mine._

He cries. So does she.

She tells him he is strong.

She gives him the gift of a name for a lost child.

She hauls him back from the abyss, with her gentleness.

And with her very first kiss.

/-/-/-/-/

Often now, when she arrives back at her chamber, she will find Jaime sitting in an armchair by the fire. She misses finding him with his legs stretched out, sat upon her bed. She doesn’t suppose they will ever truly dance again. This saddens her, more than she’d care to admit, even to herself. She knows their private arrangements would still be considered an absolute scandal, were they widely known.

_Yet nothing ever happens between us._

She closes her door to see him happily toasting his bare and somewhat odorous (it has been a long day) feet by the fire. Directly between her and her almost impossibly small but warm and steamy looking bathtub.

“I really just want to bathe, Jaime,” she sighs.

“Then hop in, wench,” he says. “Pod just filled it up for you. I promise you I won’t look.” He smiles, his eyes dark. “No matter how much I want to.”

She blushes, though her reply is weary. “I know.”

She goes to the chest below her window and pulls out a clean nightshift, then walks past him and discards her clothing before awkwardly lowering herself into the tub with a low, long moan of relief.

“Better?” he asks, looking at the fire.

She gazes at her legs as they dangle, gracelessly askew over the edge of the tub. “Yes, though I still wish I could fit into this thing.”

“You could get a bigger one, you know,” he suggests mildly. “What with you being the Evenstar and all.”

“I couldn’t do that to Pod,” she replies. “I couldn’t ask him to carry that much water up here.”

“It would be a tad unfair. And I suppose you’d have to give him a three day warning, whenever you wanted to use it.”

She flicks a few drops of water at the back of his head and a laugh rumbles in his chest.

A few moments later, he speaks. “I wanted to talk to you about the Little Wolf.”

“Which little wolf?” she asks, as she begins to scrub her arms.

“Our Little Wolf,” he answers. “She’s hiding previous training, you know.”

That catches her attention. “Really?”

“Oh, yes. She’s killed people.”

“Most of us have, Jaime.”

“Oh, I don’t mean ‘I’ve been in a battle’ or ‘a man suddenly came at me with a sword’ killed, Brienne. I mean killed.”

She drops her soap into the bathwater and ignores it. “Explain. Now.”

He does as she inelegantly gropes around to get a hold of her suddenly ridiculously evasive bar of soap and rushes to finish washing herself. She thinks about what he has said as she quickly dries her body and pulls on her long nightshift, so she can really gauge what he thinks. She almost flings herself into the armchair opposite him. “Are you sure?”

He bites his lip as he looks at her. “Oh, yes. Somehow, during the Winter War, our Little Wolf spent a considerable amount of time training in one or other of the Houses of Death in Essos. I don’t know which one, or even where, but she did.”

“I’ll speak to her, then,” Brienne says.

Jaime stands. “Good. Can I use your bathwater?”

“Yes. Your feet stink.”

“True. But can I give you some advice?” He leans over her and gazes down with a sudden, burning heat. “Dry yourself a little more thoroughly next time. I can see right through your shift.”

She almost knocks him over as she rises and dives under the blankets on her bed, rolling herself firmly away from the bathtub.

He says nothing, but she listens to him removing his clothes.

He doesn’t utter a word as he bathes. All she can hear is the splashing of water, the rubbing of soap and the sound of her scrubbing brush.

It seems to take an age.

And when he speaks again, she knows from what she has heard that he is naked behind her, holding his clothes in his hand.

“Will you need me tonight, Brienne?” he asks, softly.

_I need you every night. I need you every day. I need you._

“I think I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll leave our doors open, just in case. Goodnight, my Lady.”

“Goodnight, Jaime,” she whispers back.

/-/-/-/-/

He closes the intervening doors, leaving Lolla cradling the head of her beloved Enni, as the Evenstar weeps on her bed. He walks over to his own small table and grasps the edge of it; so firmly that he fears it will break off in his five fingers. He can feel his shoulders, shaking uncontrollably in his anger.

_He made her watch him eat her flesh._

Jaime supposes he should have guessed, years ago, purely because she had always refused to speak of it. But hearing the words from Brienne’s own mouth has ignited a pure rage that ploughs through him, cutting into his self-control as a waterfall cuts through rock. Determinedly. Intractably.

And just as cold.

He lets his grip on the table go and starts to pace back and forth, his mind simply scrambled.

_He made her watch him eat her flesh._

The thought overwhelms him. He had always considered his own maiming a bleak place to revisit, a time when his identity was torn from him in but a heartbeat. A time of mud, utter loss, fevered delusions and horse piss.

Yet this.

_This._

The undercurrents of it are so dark he can barely turn his mind from them, despite his revulsion. Or perhaps, because of it.

He can only pace back and forth.

Back and forth.

Eventually, the wooden panel opens and he finds himself quickly being held about his waist by the dearest old woman he has ever known , albeit that she is only really a handful of moons older than him.

“She is sleeping. How are _you_ , Jaime?”

He looks down at her and he is aware that his voice sounds like a dead thing. “I always thought I thoroughly understood the meaning of the motto of my former House.”

She lifts her head, her normally olive skin almost grey. “I don’t know _any_ of them.”

He doesn’t suppose she does. Lolla only knows the things she needs to and those things, she knows very well. She is ever practical. “Well, each House has one.”

“What’s the one for House Lannister?”

 _“Hear Me Roar,”_ he replies, grimly.

“That seems appropriate,” she says seriously, all of the joy normally flowing from her washed away by the tears of her Little One.

“Can I roar too?” she asks.

He looks back down into her dark eyes and smiles bleakly. “As much as you’d like.”

Lolla tucks her head in to his lower ribs and they hold each other, roaring together in total silence.

/-/-/-/-/

“Clear the yard!” Ser Kyron bellows as he strides through the gate. People scatter. Blue cloaks seem to fly, dragging any remaining young ones with them, away to safety.

Jaime knows nothing of it, or even of what he is doing. He knows his arms are flailing and can hear the sharp sounds of steel striking stone and wood, but he can’t connect the two.

Kyron is the only remaining knight on Tarth strong enough to restrain him. He feels his elbows being brutally pinioned from behind, though it is done carefully because Jaime is still holding his blunted steel. He struggles in the big knight’s grip, trying to lash out, but Kyron’s hands are unforgiving, like bands of iron. In his rage, he doesn’t even think to kick the hugely muscled man. Not that it would make any difference.

 _“Drop your sword, Ser Jaime!”_ Ser Kyron shouts, apparently as loudly as he can. It is ear-splitting and Jaime does as he says, more in shock than anything else.

“Why aren’t you in fucking Herdmarket?” Jaime spits over his shoulder, as the echoes of his clattering blade falls away.

“Some blue cloaks said the Redbeards might need me,” Kyron says, quite conversationally now, almost amiably, though his hold on Jaime’s arms doesn’t lessen a bit. “It looks like they were right.”

For a short time the only thing Jaime can hear is the air, furiously rushing in and out of him. He hasn’t been this angry for a very long time.

_Since Tommen._

He has long since known that King’s Landing is a venomous place, but it is as if this is the last insult of so many, the last thing he can bear from that toxic pit of intrigue.

_I would burn the Red Keep to ashes myself, if I could._

“All these years, Kyron! For all of these years Brienne has done nothing but serve her loyally and the first place that dragon-fucking sow sends her to is a conflict between two piss-poor Houses in the Riverlands?”

The bearded knight guffaws at his description of their Queen, but then he offers, “It _is_ at the Neck, Jaime.”

_He has a point. Still…_

“I don’t care, Kyron. I hope the rancid cunt cuts herself on that bloody iron chair of hers and dies.”

“Good, Jaime,” Ser Kyron says enthusiastically, “you’re getting a little less angry. Your insults get vastly more colourful when you’re feeling calmer, did you ever notice?”

“Shut up, Kyron.”

“No,” the bearded knight cheerfully replies as he manhandles Jaime back towards the waiting Redbeards, “but I think we’ll continue to keep your festering but understandable dislike of our dearest, most noble ruler between ourselves, don’t you?”

Jaime feels like a recalcitrant squire being hauled back from a late night at an inn for a beating, as he is unceremoniously pushed into place in front of the castellan and his wife.

Fredrick smiles at him sympathetically, but Lolla’s eyes are flinty. She holds up the parchment in her hands and begins to speak. “Jaime…”

“It’s where they almost _raped_ her, Lolla,” he interrupts, harshly. “It’s where they made her fight a _bear_ with a fucking _wooden sword_. It’s where she was bloody _hanged_. It’s where she was _maimed_.”

“I know.”

“She hates the Riverlands. She fears them. The Queen knows it. Why would that bitch send Brienne there?”

_It’s where her worst dreams live._

The little woman steps forwards and glares up at him. “Why do _you_ think?”       

It is as if a bucket of ice water has been tipped over Jaime’s head. His anger is suddenly gone as the pieces fall into place in his mind. “Please don’t say that, Lolla,” he says; his voice now quiet with shame.

Lady Redbeard gives him no ground. “I’m no politician, Jaime. I’m not interested in it. It just seems like a lot of rich people, lying and hurting smallfolk for power to me. I’ve never understood the need for power and I know I haven’t seen the world, as you have. But I do know the Dragon Warriors haven’t truly been tested yet. Her leadership hasn’t.  And neither has...”

“My banishment,” he finishes, bitterly.

She firmly nods, her mouth set in an unforgiving line.

Fredrick steps forward and reaches out, placing his own lone hand on Jaime’s shoulder.  “I’m sorry, Jaime. You were uncontrollable there, for a little while. Dangerous. We must think of the younger ones. And we can’t risk you making for the mainland. You kept shouting about going to her side. That would affect you and the Evenstar both. You understand what these things mean, my friend?”

“Of course I do, Fredrick. I’m the one who created our bloody rules of confinement.” He grimaces at the good former smith. “I just didn’t know the one being confined would be _me_.”

Fredrick grins. “We’re not going to have to chain you, are we?”

Jaime shakes his head and Kyron’s hands drop away from his arms. He swings them about, getting some feeling back into them and then they move, as a group, through Evenfall Hall, towards his chamber. Those who had taken shelter in their path scatter, once more. Some of them are very small and shame bites him again.

_I must have been blind with fury. Idiot. I didn’t even see the children._

Nothing is said until they almost reach their destination.

“You aren’t the only one angry about this, Jaime,” Lolla mutters, not wanting the newly stationed guards at the end of the corridor to hear. “She’ll need our help, when she returns.”

“I’ll help her,” he bites out, as they arrive in his chamber.

The Evenstar’s second mother measures him with her dark gaze. “ _Good_. I’ll bring you some food, later.” She turns and bustles out, with no further comment.

Fredrick looks at him, seriously. “You could get past the guards, Jaime. I don’t doubt it for a moment. They are all green. Will you be trying?”

Jaime slumps onto a chair, now weary. “No. Of course not. It would be foolish.”

“You are certain?” Fredrick asks, seemingly wary.

“I’ll swear a bloody oath, if it’ll serve.” Jaime glares at his friend.

“There’s no need,” the castellan replies, smiling. “We’ll see you in a day or so, Jaime.”

Fredrick and Kyron leave and Jaime immediately rises to his feet. He makes his way into the chamber of the Evenstar. Not to find any means of escape.

He needs to find _her_.

He walks over to Brienne’s bed and picks up a small cushion resting there. He brings it up, resting it against his cheek for just a moment, almost smelling it before he feels slightly ashamed of being in her chamber when she isn’t there. When she can’t be there, because she is so far away.

In her own worst place.

He shakes himself back to what is, as opposed to what he longs for, and slowly paces back to the little corridor that is theirs alone.

As he glances back into her chamber, he realises something.

He’s had enough. His patience is lost. He wants her safe. He wants his Brienne home.

_I want her. I need her. I love her._

He will not dishonour Brienne. And he certainly won’t push her. There’d be no point. His stubborn wench would only push back, harder than he ever could and to no good end. But he knows she wants him too and he will have her, even if practically, for them, that only means he can hold her when she’s bloody well _awake_.

“Forget the Riverlands, wench,” he says to the empty chamber, though he knows that even if she could hear him, she would insist on honourably going forth and doing her damnable duty anyway. “Come home.”

_It is long past time for us to begin._

/-/-/-/-/

He dreams of his wedding.

He wakes to his bride.

She is _not_ his bride.

But then she mentions a half tankard.


	11. The Half Tankard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The war is over. Some of them hadn’t thought that they would outlive it. And yet...
> 
>   
> Banner by [Ro Nordmann](http://ro-little-shop-of-wonders.tumblr.com)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: all of the wishing in the world will never make this mine.

CHAPTER TEN – THE HALF TANKARD

 

Jaime closes the wooden panel at his end of their little corridor. It being so, Pod will not intrude. He has been hinting as much since about an hour after he knew about it, or thereabouts. He walks slowly and deliberately along the back wall of Brienne’s armoury, stopping to gently lean against their other doorway.

He is nervous. His past experiences had been exquisitely hurried, like chasing a storm. This is a very different type of storm. It already feels so much deeper, more resonant, as if it is one they are building slowly themselves. For years, every single waking touch between them has been loaded with meaning. And now, finally, their storm is upon them.

As his footsteps cease, Brienne turns to face him, the only signs of her nervousness being her fists clenched at her sides, her shoulders slightly hunched.

She bites her lip, his wench, and he is already hard.

He speaks quietly. “I heard you call out my name this morning.” She draws in a sharp breath. “I do not know if you heard me. I called out your name, too.” He walks forward again, to stand in front of her. “Are you sure?”

She looks down at herself in apparent worry. “Are _you_ , Jaime?”

“Look at me, Brienne. _Stop_ doing this to yourself. I’ve been sure. For _years_.” He leans forward slightly to chase her skittering, lowered gaze, nodding reassuringly when he catches it.

She pauses before allowing herself to finally stand at her full height. He looks up at her in question. Her teeth brush her lower lip once more, but then she nods, too. “I am sure.”

He sighs in relief. “I’m so glad you said that.”

Suddenly he reaches for her, running his left hand and right forearm swiftly up under her shirt, feeling the skin over her ribs, pulling the material with him until it is over her head and her arms are free. He flings it across the room triumphantly. They both watch it fall.

He pulls his gaze back, allowing it to trail approvingly, slowly up her body, until he reaches her face, which is stuck in some delicious place between outrage and desire.

Before she can let any self-doubt back in, he raises his arms with a knowing grin. “Your turn, Brienne. It’s only fair.”

Brienne’s hands flick towards him, only to hesitate. Jaime just smiles at her and she reaches out again. In a moment, his own shirt follows hers through the air.

Their eyes meet once more but Brienne is skittish, her arms rising, Jaime thinks to cover her chest. “Don’t you _dare_ ,” he says lightly. She freezes, but he just steps in, even closer to her. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to look at you again? I plan on doing a great deal of looking tonight.” He very pointedly and happily stares at her little teats, sat pert on her chest, before switching his attention back to her face. “Amongst other things,” he whispers, flicking up his hand between them, just barely grazing her right nipple. She sighs and flinches and he doesn’t quite know what to make of it, so he takes a half-step backwards and asks her a question. “So where were we, Brienne?” he smiles, radiating an ease he isn’t feeling. “Before the chains, the imprisonment, the banishment and the banning of marriage and any general happiness by our dearest Queen?”

 _“Jaime,”_ she chides, but then she smiles too. “Winterfell.”

And before he can do anything, his wench takes a deep breath and steps towards him, wrapping her arms about his shoulders, hauling their bodies together. They both moan at the contact, but then she speaks into his hair. “Thank you, Jaime.”

He tucks his head in against her neck, as he had years ago. She smells so clean. She has always smelled relatively clean, even when she shouldn’t and it fills him with an old fondness. One of friendship and care. “Thank you, Brienne.”

They hold themselves still for a few precious moments, grasping onto what they have both missed so much, but feels achingly familiar and right. It isn’t long though, before Jaime’s body urges him to move things along, if only a little. He lifts his head and speaks. “You can do anything you wish now, Brienne. You can touch me anywhere you want to. Hells, you can touch yourself anywhere you want to.” He winks at her and watches her eyes widen at the thought. “I’d quite like that, actually. You can say anything and do anything you desire. We’ve known each other for far too long, I think, for restraint.”

“Restraints. Hmm,” Brienne immediately replies and Jaime’s mouth falls open. He takes a moment to realise she doesn’t mean it. “Wench!” he laughs. “You already have a captive knight. Now you’re calling for restraints? Where did you even _get_ the idea?”

“Of course I’m not. Not really,” she says, starting to blush, “but it was in that song where we somehow managed to…on a horse…”

“Ah,” he interrupts, remembering. “I know the one. Storm’s End, yes? I didn’t think you got to hear that charming ditty. Weren’t you asleep?”

Brienne tilts her head and shrugs against him. “The inn was poorly built and he was very loud.”

Jaime shakes his head, thinking how mortified his poor wench must’ve felt, lying in her bed and hearing that ill-written pile of slanderous, not to mention physically impossible, shit. “Mummers and minstrels. May all of their heads fall off. And may _I_ be the one to make it happen.”

“Save a few for me,” Brienne grins at him, all teeth and enthusiasm, and he can almost see her mind riffling through some of the more vicious methods of dismemberment he’s seen her use over the years.

“That’s my wench,” he says and kisses her.

She freezes, but after a few soft brushes of his mouth, he feels her’s move at last. At last. First it turns into a smile and then into kisses of her own. It is sweet and chaste and good, but then her fingers start to tangle in his hair and, unbidden, his tongue flicks out across her lips.

Brienne pulls her head sharply back. She looks at his mouth, then to his eyes, then at his mouth again. Then she gives the tiniest nod as her face becomes determined and she kisses him once more. Jaime lets her take the lead for a little while and when he feels her tongue brush his lips, he groans happily at the contact. The next time she does it, the tips of their tongues meet and start to play. He can feel a near silent giggle under his fingers where they rest on her ribs and he reaches down and around her waist, pulling her closer.

She begins to explore his mouth more deeply and Jaime cannot help himself. He grinds his cock against her and suddenly, they aren’t playing anymore. What was sweet and chaste and good is changed into the hounding of years of need. Into urgency. They almost battle each other, their tongues sparring and their hands now roving across scarred skin, wanting to feel. He doesn’t know how long they stand there, moaning into each other’s mouths, but he notices long fingers are starting to tug at the material resting over his hips, wanting more that is new.

He is gasping when he pulls his mouth away from her’s. But then, so is she. He can barely speak. “Breeches?”

Brienne nods, delightfully eagerly. “Yes.”

They let go of one another, scrambling out of their remaining clothes, almost racing to be the first one naked. The Lady wins, but then she does have the advantage of two hands. By the time he turns back to her, her attention is firmly fixed on him.

Just not on his face.

He looks down. “What is it, Brienne?”

She moves her head from side to side, flushing pink as she struggles to speak. “It is a little…larger than I remember.”

Jaime doesn’t know if he should feel outraged or complimented, but then he understands. She has felt his cock against her so many times, but she has only seen it once, since the North. He decides to be matter of fact about it. “The cold of winter and waterfalls is rarely flattering to the male form, Wench.”

“Oh,” she says, shifting her gaze upwards again.

He steps close in, hissing as the tip of him brushes her thigh. He does his best to sound nonchalant. “Besides, if we are going to be tediously honourable about this, you hardly have to worry about my _cock_. My fingers, perhaps.” He drops his voice. “ _Definitely_ my tongue. I’ve wanted to taste you for years.” She almost squeaks at that and Jaime grins. “And do we really have to be tedious?”

She smiles softly and shrugs. “Honourable, yes. Tedious?” Her eyes are trusting and his heart seems to clench as she slowly shakes her head. “I hope not,” she whispers. She bends a little at her waist and plants a simple kiss to his mouth.  Then she pulls herself up to her full height, takes a deep breath and asks, “Bed?”

_My bold, brave wench._

He holds her hand. “Yes.”

They move together, laying themselves down, and it is all so shockingly easy. Jaime could never have dreamt it would be like this. Though it only now occurs to him that they’ve known each other so well, for so long, and want each other so much, there can already be few mysteries left between them.

They fall back into kissing, broken by soft bouts of shared laughter, as if they can hardly believe they are finally here. But then the sense of urgency returns and Jaime knows he needs to move away, though his cock may hate him for it. After all, this first night should really be about her.

He sits up beside Brienne and waves his fingers in front of her eyes. “Do you mind if go on a small adventure, wench? I think more touching is definitely in order.”

She nods, biting her lip.

He quite deliberately spends an age running his hand over her, enjoying every moment of it. From a lone fingertip running from her jawline, down her neck, and over her collarbone, to the pebbling of small nipples and the circling of her navel, he finds her reactions utterly compelling. He discovers a place on the inside of her arm that sets her to keening and he had no idea that the skin of her wrists was so sensitive. The movement of his fingers over her waist and low on her stomach proves truly rewarding, with a couple of places that make her hips rock and breath short, that he notes will need extra attention. Perhaps a bit later on. There’s somewhere else he has to be.

He wants to be between long legs that made his mind stop when they were covered in softest blue. He reaches out and in one swift, gentle movement, runs his finger down the inside of one of them, just as far as he can.

Brienne moans and her legs slide open.

Now he is biting lip, grinning slyly up at her as he kneels between her long limbs. He looks at the pink folds hidden in between them unashamedly. They are wet and his cock twitches at the sight. “Hello,” he says and he can see her clench.

He won’t touch her, though. Not there. Not yet.

Instead, Jaime holds on to what little is left of his self-control and he runs his fingers and his stump over her thighs and calves, memorizing again the areas that make her move and sigh, appreciating the scale of them.

_She can kill men with her thighs. I have the best wife. I sorely wish._

He strokes and teases her until the soft noises she is making are almost constant and hers hips are starting to move in a slow rhythm.

He stops and lifts his hand away from her skin. “You know, Brienne, they really _do_ go on for days.”

He quickly drops onto his stomach, his own legs hanging wildly off the end of the bed, and nuzzles at the skin of her thigh. There is a sharp cry of surprise from up near the pillows.

“What are you _doing_?”

He doesn’t answer for a short time, happily distracted as he is by tasting her skin. His head seems to be chasing his own tongue for a while, before he settles in to move his lips over a place he had first seen years ago. Then he answers her. “Well, currently I’m kissing a quite delectable little group of freckles I happened to notice when I was tending to your arrow wounds at the Gates of the Moon. I’ll be moving on shortly.” He moves his head forward a little and blows softly over her golden bush and the enticingly dark pink flesh below it.

The Maid of Tarth lets out a low, soft moan. Then she lifts her head. “Jaime...you really would...for _me_?”

“It wouldn’t be very knightly for me to stop now, would it? I couldn’t leave you in all this distress, what with you being a maiden.” He chuckles. “You know how I like rescuing maidens. One maiden in particular.”

Despite her obvious want, Brienne manages to rustle up an indignant glare. “I do believe she rescued you, as well.”

He shrugs. “Once or twice.”

Said maiden promptly hits him over the head with a cushion.

“That’s going to start happening a lot now, isn’t it? Don’t worry,” Jaime grins, “I do believe it’ll prove to be worth it.”

He lowers his mouth back to her thigh, but then, in a heartbeat, it all goes badly wrong.

_Terribly wrong._

Brienne skitters away from him, pulling her legs awkwardly with her, retreating until she is sitting against the headboard, her arms clasped around her shins. Defensive. Instantly afraid. Her skin suddenly seems shockingly pale in contrast to the plain, dark wood behind her.

It takes him a moment to realise what he has done. He has just, without thinking about it, bitten at the flesh of her thigh. Playfully. Not hard. Not at all damaging. But a bite, nonetheless.

Jaime can’t move, frozen in horror at his own stupidity.

_My teeth._

_Fool!_

“Is that usual?” Brienne asks quietly, her eyes wide, different. Before he can say anything at all, she shakes her head, at herself, it would seem. “Of course it is,” she mutters, dropping her chin to breathe deeply, rhythmically onto the tops of her knees.

_Teeth are weapons to her. Weapons she has used. Weapons that have harmed her, so badly. How could I have forgotten it?_

Still silently cursing himself, Jaime struggles to speak. “Brienne. I’m _sorry_.” His words are strained, almost laced with panic.

She lifts her head and shakes it again, slowly and her own words come haltingly. “ _No._ Please. Jaime _. Don’t_ be. I _knew._ Of _course_ I knew. I just didn’t _think.”_

“We can _stop_.” His throat seems to swell as he forces the offer out and for a moment he thinks he may have lost her entirely. That they may have just lost everything.

 _“No.”_ That one utterance is fierce and unbending, but then she softens, becoming nearly sorrowful. “We’ve waited for so _long_.”

Jaime can do nothing but watch as, by painful degrees, Brienne squares her shoulders, making them impossibly wide and brave as her right leg snakes back out across the mattress, towards him. Dark blue stars peer down at him as her sword hand drops to her thigh.

“Do it again,” she whispers.

“I don’t have to.” Jaime balks at the thought of scaring her again, but his wench just nods.

All thoughts of fucking, or at least longing to fuck and doing something else, have fled from him. He only now notices that his cock has gone limp, but this isn’t about pleasure anymore. Though Jaime doesn’t suppose it ever really was. This is about them. So it doesn’t matter. It never would.

Achingly slowly, fighting his own fear at this, he inches forward, moving closer to her skin once more. Her wary, trusting eyes weigh heavily upon him as he drops his lips to her thigh and nips at her again, this time barely at all. He looks back up immediately to find Brienne gazing directly at him, her fear somewhat diminished and now more openly curious than anything. “Again,” she says.

He does so and although she hasn’t stopped holding her whole frame rigid, she lifts her hand to her hip as she lets her other leg straighten out beside him. “Here.” His mouth follows her fingers to gently brush his teeth over her flesh. Her hand flutters up her torso and Jaime fulfils every quiet request, even as a cold knot of dread begins to settle in his stomach. He knows his wench, in many ways better than he knows himself, and he is fully aware of where she is going with this.

_Whatever she wants. Whenever she chooses._

He takes her direction. He nips his way over her ribs and he can’t help but smile as Brienne shyly raises her hand in front of her right breast, unable yet to even touch herself there in front of him. Not now. Not like this. He licks and kisses her pale, pink nipple first, purely because he has wanted to for so very long, watching it darken and harden before he uses his teeth again. He hardly touches her with them, unable, unwilling to cause her further pain.

_My wench. Still a maid, but she has already seen enough pain._

He lingers on the small, soft swell of her, wanting to avoid what is coming. He is concentrating on her wellbeing so much that he only comes to feel her long fingers brushing through his hair when Brienne lets out a long, quiet exhalation above him. He glances up and there is warmth now present in her ( _for me_ , he thinks, his heart thudding in his chest) as the very beginnings of the brightness of a new understanding in her shine over him. It is like a blessing and it almost crushes him.

He lifts his mouth away from her skin, moving until he is kneeling between her legs, his face lowered. He feels like a supplicant at a strange, wonderful altar. Then he looks up at her. “It’s not all pain, Brienne. Our bodies were made for things other than war.”

“I know,” she smiles. But then she becomes serious, guarded.

_Please don’t do it. Please don’t. Brienne._

She doesn’t hear his unspoken plea. Her fingers comb through his hair a final time. And then she lifts them away, bringing them to rest on her unblemished cheek.

Jaime finds himself unable to move again.

“Jaime. I don’t want my face to have only ever been bitten by a _monster_.”

“Some people call _me_ a monster,” he says.

“You were rarely any good at it.”

“I had my moments.”

“True.” She frowns slightly at him, obviously knowing that this sudden burst of their verbal sparring marks his reluctance, but still she pushes her hand harder onto her cheek. “Please.”

_Whatever she wants. Whenever she chooses._

“Are you sure?”

She nods and her eyes are wide with trepidation. She is as vulnerable, in this moment, as he has ever seen her. And the Gods know he has seen her vulnerable. He lifts his hand to her face and cradles it in his palm. “I won’t hurt you, Brienne.”

“I know, Jaime. I trust you.” Even as she says it, her eyes are filling with water.

She is shaking as he gathers her in his arms. He isn’t far from it, himself.

As tears fall from her eyes, Jaime gently runs his teeth over her cheek. Their eyes are open, both sets, blue and green, wide in fear. But after a few moments of this awful, gut-wrenching contact, he has had enough. He decides to change things. He pulls his face just far enough away to nudge her nose with his own. “Did you want any animal noises, wench? I could be a wolf, if you like. Or a bear. Or a lion of course, but don’t tell the Queen.”

Brienne looks at him blankly for a moment, but then she smiles, even as she shakes under his fingers and she cries. “I’ve always liked wolves.”

“You wound me,” he grins. But then he dives back to her cheek and bites it, not with any force but properly, shaking his head a little and making frankly childish growling sounds in the process. It isn’t long before he pulls away entirely and lifts his fingers between them to stroke the skin that is wet with his spittle and her tears. “There,” he reassures her. “Not a mark.”

Caught between giggling and flat-out panic, Brienne is a mess. “You make for a terrible wolf, Jaime.”

He purposely sighs rather like a drunken mummer who is over-impressed with his own skills. “I never did like the Starks. I found all of that honour quite tedious.”

Her fingers suddenly wrap around his stump for a moment, without a care. _How easily she does that._ “I’m sorry, that was so _stupid_ ,” she says, throwing herself about him, making him warm with her arms.

“It really _wasn’t_ , Brienne,” he finds himself whispering into her hair, holding her to him, trying to take her completely understandable darkness away from her through his skin. He softly but insistently tugs at her right arm, bringing her with him so they can lay themselves down, facing each other on the bed, but even then he can taste her tears with his tongue, on the back of his own teeth.

And he hates it.

They fall into silence, for forever and for no time at all.

At first they lie unmoving, but then their hands begin to wander, holding, stroking, caressing. There is nothing bold or new about it. They go nowhere they haven’t been before today. These are familiar movements to them both. They are made of warm regard, of comfort and peace. _Of love_ , he whispers silently in his mind. It has just been such a long time since they shared them whilst they are awake.

Eventually, Brienne speaks. “I’m sorry. This hasn’t quite turned out as we’d both hoped, I think.”

“I’m _not_ ,” he says quietly, kissing the lines that rise between her eyebrows. Once only present when she was angry, or fighting, they have long since taken up permanent residence on her face. Jaime sees them as a measure of the care in her, of the weight she has had to bear, in her role as the Evenstar. As beautiful. “You are the bravest person I’ve ever bloody known.”

Brienne sniffs, her nose red, even as her eyes brighten. “I suppose I _did_ fight a bear.”

“Yes,” he nods. “Though I jumped into that very same bearpit to save you, injured and unarmed.” He shrugs his free shoulder nonchalantly. “So maybe _I’m_ the bravest person I’ve ever known.”

“Idiot,” she says, laughing at last and placing her mouth firmly against his, probably to make him stop talking more than anything. He doesn’t mind though, and the next few minutes are lost in easy exploration. It hasn’t taken him a great deal of time to find the feel of his wench’s large soft lips on his own utterly captivating. Is it really less than a day? And when she flicks her tongue across the surface of his lower lip, he tries to still the bolt of urgent want that hits him by leaning his head back and levelling a challenging look in her direction. She does, after all, like a challenge.

“By the way, the night is yet young. And you can bite me any time you choose. Over the years, I’ve found myself growing ever more fond of your crooked teeth.” A chiding narrowing of eyes turns into a silent question. Jaime smiles, pushing his shoulder forward. “I’m quite serious.”

For the space of a heartbeat, Brienne’s eyebrows furrow in doubt, but then, with exceptional slowness, she tilts her head forward to his offered flesh. The first brush of her teeth over him, tiny though it is, dispatches a bolt of pleasure clear to his cock. And he moans.

Brienne pulls away from him, surprised. “You like it,” she whispers. Jaime can only nod in response. He can feel his mouth twisting into a ridiculously lopsided grin. His wench regards him oddly before she moves back towards him.

She is not fierce in any way and he finds himself strangely assaulted by overwhelmingly soft sensation as Brienne slowly, deliberately, plays with him, explores him, each gentle pinch of the meat of him between her wet teeth making him want. She works her way along his collarbone, to the base of his neck and Jaime finds he has to hold himself tense and still to ignore the inner need to simply pin her down and fuck her.

Words begin falling from his lips, though he has no idea what they are. She is so gentle. But she is making him burn. Then she shifts and her thigh brushes the skin of his cock, so sensitive now, that he damn near whimpers in his need. Brienne pushes herself away at the contact, her eyes flickering downwards. “Oh,” she says shyly, glancing back up at him. “You _really_ like it.”

He can do nothing but gaze back at her in sheer desperation.

Brienne smiles, but then _she_ decides to change things. She lifts herself quickly away from him, gently rolling him onto his back. Confused, he watches her long limbs fold away from him. She ends up kneeling next to him, her knees tucked against the side of his right hip.

Then she looks back down at him and offers two words. “Show me.”

His mind goes blank. “What?”

She reaches up, over his body, running her fingers along the collarbone she has just bitten as she looks at her own fingers, perhaps too nervous to ask him directly again. “Show me what you do, Jaime. How you do it...I don’t know, but I want to know.”

“Surely in the camps you..?” His voice fails him as he truly realises what she is asking him to do. His mind scrambles through his many years. He doesn’t think this even happened with Cersei. Back then, it was almost never about him.

His wench laughs softly, her skin turning red. “I’ve seen, but I quickly learned to be very swift at averting my eyes.” Then her gaze pins him as if she had a sword. Certain, gently serious. “And I need to know how _you_ do it, Jaime. What _you_ like.”

He can’t even believe that she would want this. He’s not even sure he does. “I’ve never really...finished… _on my own_...in front of...I _haven’t_...”

His words may be stuttering and uncertain, but it is as if a weight is lifted from the shoulders of the Maid of Tarth. She leans over him slightly awkwardly, her torso twisted and her palms planted on either side of his head as she smiles against his mouth.  “Then we are _even_.”

A quick peck to his lips and she pushes herself back onto her knees, looking down at him warmly. She reaches her hand down to stroke his scarred stump as she says, “Everything you’ve said about what I can do here is the same for you, Jaime. It has to be. So if you don’t want to...”

“I _do_!” he bursts out, shocking himself with his own vehemence. But then, in wonder at her, he whispers, “You just never stop surprising me.”

He takes a deep breath and waggles his fingers at her in a jaunty wave that makes them both grin shyly ( _I can’t believe I’m feeling shy_ , he thinks), before dropping them to his skin. He lets his hand run over low over his stomach to grasp his prick, but he is looking at her. And her gaze is riveted to his fingers as he wraps them about himself. She truly wants to know how he finds pleasure and the thought of it almost paralyses him.

Just two strokes of his hand and the weight of her gaze makes him realise that this could be embarrassing. He searches for his voice. The one she is used to, anyway. “This is unlikely to last long, Brienne. But do feel free to join in, whenever you want.”

She blushes, yet again, and it just hauls him closer to the edge. He can’t take his eyes from her. She wets her lips slowly with her own tongue as she watches him and he can see that she doesn’t even know it. She is paying no attention to herself and there is, as ever there was, no guile in her.

_She is womanly without even knowing it._

He sees the muscles in her thighs begin to twitch in time with the movements of his hand and her hips start to bounce up and down, if only by the tiniest amount. It can barely be seen, but it is there. The thought of it maddens him.

_Would she move like that if she rode me? In perfect time?_

But then she reaches out, with a lone finger, and places the tip of it next to his hand, on his cock. She leans over him slightly as his pace hastens. He can see what she is doing and it stuns Jaime.

_She is learning the rhythm of me._

And with him, she has always learned how to dance very quickly.

Just the thought of her other fingers grasped around him makes his balls tighten and the muscles in his stomach start to flex as his world collapses to this vision of a single, callused finger next to his own. He comes undone, his hips lifted from the mattress, seeking her, the low groan falling from his straining throat loud in his ears.

There is fire in his blood. And it is all for Brienne.

His pleasure is brief. Jaime pulls himself back together as quickly as he can, almost within moments, his muscles tensing as he prepares to do whatever she wants.

To hold her.

To give her pleasure.

_Or to go._

That last thought shocks him and he isn’t aware that his realisation is at all audible until Brienne reaches up to his face, stroking his cheek. “What’s wrong, Jaime?”

He lifts his head. “It’s been so long. And I thought…” he shrugs, uncertainly, suddenly acutely ashamed, “I thought I’d have to _leave._ ”

He isn’t quite prepared for the look of horror that crosses Brienne’s face. It is brief, but there. What he had with Cersei may well have been like chasing a storm, but they could never catch it. And now, as the Maid of Tarth looks at him slightly disbelievingly, he knows why.

Brienne shakes her head and runs her long fingers through his hair. “You look tired,” she says quietly, nothing but warmth to be seen in her. “You can rest here, Jaime. If you want to.”

He nods. “I’d like to,” he says, his voice still rough and deep. “I won’t be long, Brienne.”

“It doesn’t matter, Jaime,” his dear wench says, though her own eyes are dark and wanting. “It doesn’t matter at all.”

He lets his head drop back onto the cushion beneath it, blowing out a breath he hadn’t even known he’d been holding. He lets the remnants of his pleasure wash over him once more and it is a new thing. Startling. Jaime is overwhelmed by an entirely unfamiliar feeling as his eyelids fall closed.

This is right.

/-/-/-/-/

She watches him as he dozes, his eyes almost closed, and she wants him more than she ever has.

_He called out my name._

Not this morning. She didn’t hear that. She’d been too caught up in her own desperation, her own want for him, then. Not even as he spilled his seed over their hands, sharing the strange, sticky, white wetness of him between their fingers. He was too far gone, she could see it.

Though watching him lose himself was beautiful.

Yet when her teeth had done no more than move over the skin of him, barely grasping at parts of it at all, her name had tumbled out of him so many times. Urgent. Needing. Just the thought of it makes her nipples hard, aching in the cold, night air. Except the night air is no longer cold on Tarth. Summer is truly here.

There is no excuse any more.

_There hasn’t been an excuse for a long time. There probably never was. Not for me. I have loved him for so long._

She smiles down at the pale mess on Jaime’s stomach and thinks it ridiculous that such a strange substance should still be keeping them apart. She has dreamed of having him inside her for such a large part of her life that (despite her earlier surprise), she would take him in this very moment, if she could.

The core of her is lost, warm, throbbing with the sheer want of him.

_But some things must be denied. I want him to live._

She gently lifts herself from her bed, padding silently over to her washbowl. She rinses her hands in the still lukewarm water and then dips in one of the small cloths she customarily keeps beside it. She wrings it out and turns back to the bed and just stops. The mere sight of him is almost too much for her. He is already waking, though his eyes are half-lidded. Some of his hair rests on his cheek, gold now streaked with silver. His body is as relaxed as she has ever seen it, his muscles lacking the tenseness that he normally bears even in sleep, his limbs thrown out, his left forearm dangling over the side of the bed.

A maimed god hewn from flesh, not stone.

_And all the better for it._

She climbs back onto the bed as he comes to and wipes his stomach clean. She knows he is watching her as she carefully balls up the little textile scrap and throws it at the low flames in the fireplace. Being damp, it takes a little while for the flames to catch.

“Did you miss?” He is all huskiness and it makes her want.

Nonetheless, she just looks at him flatly.

“Stupid question?” he says and she leans over him as she did earlier, quickly kissing him.

“Idiot.”

_His lips are dry. And I’m nervous._

“Would you like some water?” she asks, starting to lift herself back up from the mattress, but he stills her with a tap of his stump. Then he groans and pushes himself up until he is sitting in front of her. He lifts his head and his eyes are blazing with a heat that makes her thrum, low down inside. “That’s not _quite_ the way I want to wet my lips, wench. As I recall, I have some unfinished business to attend to. Now where was I?”

“Freckles,” she whispers. Wanting. Shy. Wanting. _Wanting._

“I do believe you’re right.” Jaime reaches out with a single finger, pushing gently at the centre of her chest. She twists and falls back to the cushions willingly and he smiles down at her. “Though that does leave with me with a slight problem. You have so _many_ of them.”

He lowers his head to her left breast and softly brushes his lips over some freckles there. Brienne’s breath stutters and a sharp pang of need sees her rocking her hips up. Jaime feels it and hums against her skin, moving his mouth to her nipple and suckling at her. The sight of him doing so sets her to panting, little pulses of pleasure beating within her.

Now in silence, Jaime works his way over her, finding places she never has that elicit moans and fill her with the sweetest of want. Brienne has always been direct in her own need and simply had no idea that such ordinary places on her skin could be anything but. Near a hip, he discovers a new place that sears her, has her grasping onto the blankets beneath her as she pushes herself up towards him, keening, wet and desperate for more contact. Any contact.

_I’m so close and he hasn’t even touched me there yet._

He moves between her legs, which Brienne only now feels are already wide open, wanton. _I did that myself_. It shocks her.

“My favourite ones, I think. Definitely your bravest,” Jaime smiles, his lips moving to the freckles he’d bitten earlier. He doesn’t this time. He is all lips and tongue, edging slowly up along the inside of her thigh. She is want, she is pleasure, but her shyness isn’t entirely gone and when his breath blows across the folds of her once more she has a ridiculous thought, more a memory really. Despite her need, it makes her laugh nervously. She drapes her fingers over her navel as she does so. Jaime stops what he is doing and pulls back slightly, suddenly wary.

_He thinks he’s done something wrong._

She shakes her head and nods towards the door of her chamber. Her hips are still moving infinitesimally, aching for him, but she must speak. Her voice sounds deep and strange to her. “I’m sorry, Jaime. But I just remembered how my Septa used to stand over there, glaring at me over the slightest thing.” She laughs softly again. “What would she make of _this_?”

“Let’s deal with her once and for all, shall we?” Jaime says, turning his head towards the empty space in front of the doorway a little uncomfortably, yet managing to drop another kiss onto those freckles on her thigh when he does so. “Get out, you piously judgemental old hag. By all accounts, you were an awful Septa and probably a truly dreadful person, given the damage you left in your wake. Besides,” he turns, his attention now squarely back on Brienne, his gaze suddenly deeply intimate, “the Lady is _busy_.” Jaime bites his lower lip, just for a moment and Brienne’s soft laughter stops. She quivers inside. Then he continues, his words silken. “After all, I’m just about to fuck her with my tongue.”

A low moan that Brienne doesn’t even realise she is making rends the air and all of her shyness, all of her fear, drops away.

So he does.

In moments, he nuzzles into her folds and his lips find the small nub hidden there. He sucks and teases her with his tongue and she calls her need out, her body tilting to meet him. Long minutes of this attention see his movements get faster, firmer and Brienne forget everything, everything but him.

Then he shifts and his tongue slides away to sweep over the entrance to her, around it.

Slowly, he caresses his way inside, dipping further into her with each stroke. He sets a slow, steady rhythm and she’s sure she can feel every movement of him, every tiny wiggle of the tip of his tongue.

She rolls her head onto her left shoulder and looks down over her body, towards Jaime. Darkened green eyes are already fixed on Brienne’s face and the realisation jolts her. He is watching her react as he is fucking her with his tongue.

And it is _wonderful._

“Jaime,” she whispers.

If having his tongue on her, in her, is wrong, she doesn’t care. She never wants it to stop. Though in the very heartbeat she thinks this, it does and she groans when it is gone. Not that it matters. By the time her wordless protest is done, his fingers have replaced it. What was slow becomes more rapid and Brienne lets her body take charge, her hips rising to meet him in perfect time.

_He is inside me._

He is deeper inside her than she has ever managed to be and she cries out at the knowledge and feel of it.

_He is inside me._

But then Jaime pushes her hip back down with his stump, onto the blankets, keeping her still even though his fingers don’t stop. She frowns at him, but he just grins and lowers his head once more. As his tongue flicks deftly over the tiny bundle of nerves where he began, Brienne lets out a piercing cry. Her thighs begin to twitch and she tries to buck up against him. So desperate now. His fingertips seem to twist and brush somewhere new in her and pleasure finally breaks, waves of it making her tighten and squeeze him as warmth floods her. Even as she peaks, she lets her head fall back, moaning because she feels Jaime’s fingers leave her, but waiting for welcome relaxation to arrive.

But it doesn’t. Not yet.

Because his tongue _doesn’t_ stop.

And she is helpless under it.

She can barely raise her head again, but she gets a quick glimpse of Jaime, his eyes a picture of narrowed concentration.

And his mouth.

_Gods, his mouth._

His lips and tongue are moving over her little nub with a near fury, fast and relentless. And what she had thought done, only increases. What were waves becomes one long, drawn-out wail of pleasure that spears through her until there is nothing left but sensation. She makes noises she can’t recognise, for this is the first time she has ever made them. She can’t control her body, her back arching from the bed, her legs so open to him, her hips pushing at him, insistent, needing. Every single part of her seems to sing and soon it becomes too much. She frantically grasps Jaime’s hair, pleading for him to stop. Pleading for him to never stop.

He presses a soft kiss to the flesh of her and he stops, smiling when a final cry pours from her. Brienne collapses back to the bed, utterly undone in a way she hadn’t even known existed. She looks at Jaime and she knows she is gaping at him.

His face becomes somewhat sad as he gazes at her. “I _knew_ you’d been cheating yourself, Brienne. A little pleasure is all you’ve ever allowed yourself, isn’t it?” But then his work-swollen lips curl upwards again. “Do you think you could let go of my hair?”

She can only nod and untangle her fingers, lifting them shakily away from him, letting her arms fall to her sides.

Her knight rolls his shoulders and flings his head back, stretching his neck. Then he moves to her left, flopping down with a happy huff. Brienne’s skin is so sensitive that any brush of his against her drags out yet another little gasp, a situation of which Jaime naturally chooses to take advantage. Every so often, he flicks out his hand, only slightly touching her and her breath stutters as inside, she reels. Though for the most part, Brienne is fairly certain she is still just gaping at him.

After a while, he asks a question. “Wench, are you speechless?”

She tries to speak. She really does. But then she blushes.

Jaime pulls her to him and if he is looking a little smug, she can hardly blame him. A strum of his fingers, low on her back, makes her moan when a brief pulse of warmth flashes through her again.

He kisses her forehead, his beard damp.

“There, my Lady. Pleasure you have never known.”

/-/-/-/-/

He is waiting, perfectly still against her back, for the morning light to wake her.

And Jaime is happy.

Every single moment of this night was precious, even when it all seemed to be going terribly wrong. He has never known anything remotely like it.

_My trusting, brave, curious, blushing Brienne._

He can smell her on his beard and he thinks of the wet taste of her as she overcame her shyness and became nothing but forceful, overwhelming need, pushed hard against his mouth.

_So beautiful to me as she came apart._

Had he the freedom to do so, he would take her to the Sept this very morning, followed swiftly by another traipse across Westeros, finding every whoreson cunt who had ever insulted her. They could share the batterings (it’s only fair) and he would laugh at them. Idiots, all. 

_She is the paramount woman in the whole godsforsaken world._

His cock is stiff against her and he begins to struggle to remain unmoving, wanting the friction of her skin. This isn’t a new problem. Since they’d started sharing blankets on their long trek into the deepest winter years ago, he’d almost unfailingly found himself waking heavy with want for his Wench. At the time, he’d thought it was just because she was near and had glibly mouthed some half-truth to her about it happening every morning. But now that his fingers and his tongue have been inside her, he’s finding that it is even worse. She is so strong and tight and frankly glorious that he is gripping the cushion under their heads until his knuckles hurt.

Brienne stretches, moans, rolling her head forwards a little, just as she always does and he sighs in relief. She is waking at last. He holds in a shudder, but then he notices something that has been obvious all along, even if he had never realised it and it is as if a veil is torn from his eyes. She carefully places her head where it was when she first woke. This, in turn, puts her skin squarely back where it was.

_Against my lips._

He smiles against her and lets them move in the light of the morning. At last.                 

His wench sighs and he finally licks that place on her neck he has woken to for so long. It makes her keen for him. He laughs, rough and low, as she wriggles and her arse brushes his aching cock.

_Gods, Wench. How I want you._

One last kiss and he speaks. “You have no idea how often I’ve wanted to do that.”

She rolls over to face him, her eyes dark. “You might be surprised.”

He grins lazily and asks her two questions. “Am I correct in recalling some talk yesterday of doing certain things together? And do we have the time?”

Brienne pretends, very badly, to be considering the matter extremely seriously, but it doesn’t take long for an eager, shy smile to spread over her face. “Yes. And yes.”

“Good,” Jaime says.

/-/-/-/-/

They encounter each other in a corridor during the day. Jaime is alone, making his way to the courtyard, but the Evenstar suddenly appears ahead of him, being trailed, as she so often is, by chattering people, all of them attempting to wrestle a moment of attention from the feared Maid of Tarth. He watches her lengthen her stride, trying to lose them and as she draws closer she crosses her eyes at him, clearly being tried by the tedium that follows her.

But then, because no-one else can see, she smiles at him and it steals his breath. It is as if the sun has risen, only for him, to keep him warm until it is dark once more and he can hold her again.

/-/-/-/-/

On their second morning, Jaime is woken, albeit briefly, when dawn is yet to fully break by an insistent tugging at his right foot.

The night before had seen them collide in a frantic need to find and to touch each other’s skin once more. They’d fallen to the bed, mostly still clothed, with hurried words of want accompanying a truly graceless rush to pleasure. The manner of it hadn’t mattered one bit and they had ended up lying close together after ferocious moaning and trembling changed to soft, tired laughter.

_We must have fallen asleep._

“Jaime.”

He clears his throat. “Brienne?”

“I was jesting about the restraints.”

Sleep is still holding him and he is confused. “What?”

His foot jerks again. “Your breeches, Jaime,” she says quietly. “Can you kick them off?”

He raises his head, blinking in the half-light. He looks down between them and sees what is bothering her. One leg of his breeches is caught over his boot. His lone boot, he notices.  And the rest of them are somehow wrapped around Brienne’s leg. He tilts his head.

_They really are quite tangled._

He lets his head drop back down and smiles. “What if I say no?”

His smile is met by another. “You know exactly what.”

“That would be taking unfair advantage, wench.”

“Life is ever cruel, isn’t it, Jaime?”

He sighs and, with some difficulty, does as she has asked. It turns out to be worth it. Once they are freed, Brienne rolls onto her back and lifts her knee straight up to her chest so she can untangle the breeches from her long leg, extending it until the knot of his breeches is above her face. She makes the movements look well within her capabilities.

 _Quite the view_ , he thinks, as he drifts happily back off to sleep. _That might be useful to remember, in an hour or so._

/-/-/-/-/

On their fifth morning, she is desperately trying to wash and dress. She has duties to which she must attend. Progress, however, is slow as a certain knight’s fingers and lips dance across her back.

“Stop it, Jaime.”

“Must I?”

“I could make you stop, if you like.”

There is a long lick of a precious tongue from one shoulder to the other. She gasps and a bearded chin is perched close in to her neck. “You could _try_ , Brienne.”

She whips around to face him, her hands stretching out towards his ribs, but Jaime is still very quick on his feet and backs away, looking somewhat offended. “Not fair, wench,” he says, already trying not to laugh.

“I don’t care,” she grins, taking another step towards him, making him move back again. She knows something about him that no one else living does and she intends to take full advantage of it, when necessary.

He is _ticklish_.

“How do you think it would’ve been received, all those years ago, if your enemies had known that all they had to do to defeat the most feared knight in Westeros was to face him with a feather, not a sword?”

He shrugs, all mock defiance. “I always wore armour in front of them, so it was never an issue.” She moves forward once more and he dances away in perfect time until his calves hit the end of the bed. He sighs and lifts his arms out beside him, warmly resigned to his dreadful fate. “Do your worst, my Lady. I can take it.”

 _He really can’t_ , she thinks as she pauses, making him wait. But then her hands flash out and the bed is impacted by a writhing, guffawing pile of Jaime. Before she can advance, taking further advantage of his terrible weakness, a foot is planted firmly below her breasts. Her poor, beleaguered knight looks up at her with exaggerated sadness. “Oh, go on then. Do your dull Evenstar things.” Then he smiles directly at her chest. “Just tell me we’ll be able to do _other_ things later on.”

Brienne laughs, shaking her head as she goes to pull on her breeches. “I should think so.” She knows he is watching her and there is an old, familiar comfort to it, even if it is now laced with a new intimacy she is swiftly finding she adores.  “What about you, Jaime? Surely you have things to do this morning?”

He rises from the bed as she pops her head out through the neck of her loose tunic. He leans against the bedpost with his stump and starts to pull on his own breeches. “I do,” he replies. “I’m _hiding_. Gaven is coming.”

She finds herself laughing again as she paces across to him, reaching to his waist to secure the laces there. They laugh a lot more than she could ever have imagined. It is a joy to her, to them both, she thinks. “My brave knight. I thought you enjoyed talking about dry stone walling?”

He snorts. “Not for half a _day_. Your second cousin is a very likable man, Brienne, but his obsession with building walls is a fraction unusual.” He quickly pecks at her lips and walks towards their little corridor.  Pod will be here soon to put her in her metal.

“It’s your fault he likes you so much, Jaime. You would insist on helping him with the wall around the Godswood. He’s very proud of it, you know.”

“I know. He talks about building it as if it were a battle. I promise I’ll spend an hour or two with him later, Brienne. In the meantime, I’ll just be lying in my chamber, thinking of all that’s hidden under your armour. And the ways I can pry it away from you very quickly.”

She is stunned. “You think of me when I’m in my armour?”

Jaime simply looks at her as if he is worried for her sanity. “Yes. Do you have any idea how many days of my life I have spent looking at the back of it?” He flashes her a grin and is gone.

/-/-/-/-/

It is just shy of a fortnight after they first began that an impromptu bout of naked wrestling, triggered by Brienne’s near constant attempts to tickle him, ends up in a far better place than Jaime could ever have anticipated. Even though, technically, he loses. Finding himself pinned down, his arms flung away from him, his wench lightly straddling his waist, he decides not to admit defeat. Instead, he drags a heated look up over her broad planes and slight curves, enjoying the sight of her small breasts from his position, and lifts his left hand, waggling his fingers. “This is quite a lovely view, Brienne. Is there anything I can do for you, whilst you’re here?”

He watches her drop her head forward, sucking on her teeth a little as she seems to consider his offer. Then she answers quietly. “No.”

“Really?” Jaime says, trying not to sound as disappointed as he feels. She nods her head slowly and starts to rise, to get away from him, he thinks, but then, once she is upright, the weight of her centred above her knees, she simply stops. A lovely view is now made magnificent. Her thighs are touching his upper arms and her body is now far closer, towering over him. From this vantage point, Jaime can see the slight increase in the swell of her breasts and her lower stomach that indicates her moon’s blood will be with her in days. _How strange that I should already know the signs._ Though perhaps it isn’t. He doesn’t care. It all adds to the feeling that he is lucky enough to be laying underneath some previously unrecognised warrior goddess, all scars and strength and womanliness.

Definitely womanliness, he smiles as he glances at the tangle of hair that he thinks he might just be able to reach past with his tongue. It’ll be awkward, but worth the try. He folds his forearms in, gripping her behind her knees with his wrists to tilt her towards him. He starts attempting to lift his head for a taste, only to find Brienne gently pushing it back down onto the pillow behind him with her left hand. Her eyes say what she does not. _No._

He looks up at her in confusion, but it is only brief, for although there is some uncertainty in her and the fingers she lifts away from him are shaking, they come to rest over a pink nipple. He finally understands her intent and lust hits him like a thunderclap. _Oh, Gods._ He rarely prays, but now he is suddenly, silently praying to all of them that this isn’t some kind of jest. His eyes drop from where she is lightly brushing her fingertips across her chest, back to the place she had just denied him.

_So close. And she’s going to do it right there. Right there. Oh, Gods._

He’s almost overcome by a wave of panic. The sense of proximity in this is entirely new to him. Across a room? Yes. Lying next to one another? Also, both recently and a lifetime ago. But this? He’s already gasping and his cock is solid, aching for the want of it as he drags his eyes up to her face and utters one, rough word. “Please.”

Brienne’s relief is nearly palpable. She lets out a long, slow breath and nods, still somehow timid as she smiles down at him, despite what she is offering to do. But then she lifts her sword hand up, running it over her hip, only to let it pause, her fingertips strumming over a spot she loves, but that he was the one to truly discover so recently.

Her breath stutters above him.

His mind almost stops.

His senses are left intact. And he revels in them.

Hearing the catch in her breath, he sees her pinching at her own nipple, far more roughly than he could ever have imagined. Watching her right hand slide lower and the middle finger, the one he’d always been convinced that she likes to use, finds its way through the little thicket hiding her, all alone. The moment when that finger finds her little nub and her thighs twitch against his and a low moan falls from her mouth. The sound pulls his attention upwards and he finds her gaze fixed upon him, her pupils dark, her blue eyes wanting, needing to know what he thinks. She honestly doesn’t believe in herself.

She should.

“More,” he gasps as his own hips begin to move up into nothing, seeking friction. Wanting _her_.

The smell of her is made almost overwhelming, though he is now familiar with it. They are so new that he’ll carry it with him, in his beard, at any and every opportunity. For at least a little while.

But it is now so close, so thick in the air, so clean and fresh, so of Brienne, yet with that underlying tang of metal she is so often made to bear, that Jaime wants to remind her that she is womanly too.

So womanly, he needs her to know, at last, at last, as she really begins to take her own pleasure.

_So close to me._

He watches a lone finger move, at first slowly, for it is all she needs right then, but ever more swiftly. But then another joins it and he is transfixed by the beauty of her as she finally enters herself. In the beginning, she is gentle. The first finger is paired with the second in a few, soft strokes. Then a slow, determined pushing in and rhythmic movements of her fingers eventually become a strong beat. Her hips begin to roll and curve as she works in her own body and Jaime pulls his forearms tighter around her thighs. For all that he wants to take his own pleasure, this is about Brienne. And he really wants to see it.

The Maid of Tarth is fucking herself, mere inches from his face, even as she watches him, and it is all he could have ever wanted to see. He feels hypnotized by the pale lengths of her fingers, made even paler against the swollen, wanting, dark pink folds of her as they swiftly and gracefully dart in and out. He watches those fingers become soaked with her own juices and he can barely restrain himself from joining in. It is clear he doesn’t have to. She knows herself and her own kind of pleasure well enough.

And he so badly wants to see it.

So he waits, and wants, but it soon becomes clear she is very close and despite the fact that neither of them have so much as looked at his cock, he is broken. It only takes the beginning for her, when the movements of her become erratic, when he can see the muscles of her lovely cunt grasping her fingers fiercely, but in broken moments, holding them tightly, then not, that he thrusts his hips upwards into the air, nothing but her name holding him or escaping him, and it doesn’t matter a bit.

He doesn’t think she even knows it as he forces his head back, catching her gaze with his want when he tumbles over the edge. He pulls himself back as quickly as he can. Brienne isn’t quite done yet and he looks at her fingers working herself again. Her other hand has dropped to join the first, just a finger creeping through her little thatch to tease at that tiny nub that he knows can make her damn near scream. The sweet undulations of her hips becomes almost wild. She moves like the sea as a gorgeous flush chases across the skin of her. She starts to lean away from him and Jaime increases the hold he has on her legs. It may be selfish, but he wants to keep her close, but it doesn’t matter because within another few moments, she shatters. Her spine arches and she throws her head back, low quick moans escaping her, getting higher.

Ending with his name.

He sucks in a sharp breath at the sound of it. And simply watches.

Ever so slowly, she leaves her own pink flesh and then she rocks forward, her hands landing on either side of his head as she looks down at him, licking her dry lips. Her eyes are stars above him. “Thank you, Jaime,” she whispers, her chest heaving.

He tugs at her right hand with his left until his wench shifts her weight and allows him to lift it. With deliberate slowness he flicks his tongue out over her wet fingers and then suckles on them, his gaze locked with hers. It draws a quiet gasp from her and he can feel her thighs grip him briefly.

He lets her hand go. “I’m pretty sure I should be the one doing the thanking, Brienne.”

Her face falls, she shifts her eyes away from him and he can barely hear her next, muttered words. “I thought you might laugh at me.”

Jaime contains a stab of fury at those in her past who have hurt her and reaches up to stroke her cheek. “Look behind you, Brienne.”

Confused, she glances at him but he flicks his eyes downwards, vaguely in the direction of his cock. Brienne rises up and twists her torso awkwardly, gazing down at his stomach in clear astonishment. He flicks his hand up and brushes the skin of her waist. She turns back to him, gaping. She has been doing a lot of gaping of late, his wench.

“You didn’t even have to touch me.” He winks at her. “Now come and hold an old man who has inexplicably tired arms.”

She is blushing again when she rests her weight next to him on the bed, her arm settling across his chest.

She’s been doing a lot of that, too, he thinks somewhat absently, as he presses a kiss to her forehead.

/-/-/-/-/

For two moons, only Pod is aware of the change between them and he says nothing, though he appears to be very happy about it. He even brings in a tray of breakfast for them one morning. “There’s only enough for one, I’m afraid,” he shrugs. “I’ve already eaten, so I couldn’t really ask for enough for both of you.”

“Thank you, Pod,” Brienne says warmly from her pillow. Jaime looks down at her. She is lying on her stomach, her head turned towards them. Her hair is almost a bird’s nest but the smile she carries is full of care for her dear boy. Ser Podrick Payne of Tarth, now a knight, a man grown and no small one at that, will always be her dear boy.

Jaime grins happily up at the younger knight, who makes no further comment, just smiling back at them as he leaves the way he came in, securing the wooden panel as he heads back into the chamber of the Tamer of the North.

Then Jaime inadvertently lets one other person know over dinner in the Great Hall. Brienne sits down next to him with her bowl of stew and takes a mouthful of the sauce. She lets out a very quiet, but frankly sinful, moan. “This is so good,” she whispers.

Jaime drops his gaze to his platter instantly and tries very hard not to think of her thighs wrapped firmly about his ears, just as they had been early this very morning, when she had sighed out the very same words just for him. He pushes lumps of meat aimlessly about as his wench mutters on, wondering if there is a new cook at Evenfall, before she starts gracelessly shovelling the food into her mouth. It has been a very long day, after all. As was the night before it. And she really seems to be enjoying the stew, which is admittedly very tasty.

_Please stop making those noises, wench._

He gathers himself as much as he can and lifts his head.

_Fuck._

He is pinned by dark eyes and a very knowing smile. Lolla pushes her own platter towards him with a wink and stands, walking swiftly around the table, hardly pausing as she grasps Brienne’s arm and yanks her away from her seat.

The Evenstar nearly stumbles after her. “Lolla, I was eating!”

Lady Redbeard grins upwards, her eyebrows arched. “I’m sure you _were_ , little one. But we have something we need to discuss. Right now.”

Brienne looks back at him, slightly panicked, but Jaime just shrugs and tips Lolla’s food onto his platter as she is unceremoniously dragged out of the hall, sauce dripping from the spoon she hasn’t put down.

_Oh, to be a fly on the wall for that talk._

Once he has eaten, he takes Brienne’s dinner and a clean spoon up to her chamber to wait. After an hour or so, the Evenstar comes in and slams the door shut, leaning heavily against it as if trying to keep out an entire opposing army.

“That bad?” he asks.

Brienne looks at him, her eyes wide in shock. “She sat me down and told me to tell her everything. I didn’t tell her much, so she told _me_ everything instead.”

“I would imagine Lolla’s quite knowledgeable.” He purses his lips together, trying to be serious.

“She is,” Brienne fiercely kicks off her boots, “about so many...things.” His wench comes and sits in the chair facing his. “She ended up talking to me about...a thing you can do with ice. _Ice_ , Jaime. Lolla has never left Tarth and Tarth is rarely icy. How would she even know what to _do_ with ice?”

Jaime has only truly heard one part of that. “There’s a thing you can do with ice?”

Brienne holds up a hand, shaking her head furiously. “Ask her yourself.”

He begins to chuckle. “I think I will. I think I’ll also ask her why she didn’t tell you about it before you left for war.”

“It wouldn’t have made any difference in the North, Jaime. We weren’t...us, then.”

He leans forward and narrows his eyes, an eyebrow slowly rising. “We might have been, had you known about the thing you can do with ice.”

He watches Brienne fall into a fit of helpless giggles, alternately flapping her hands and covering her face. He follows her into mirth, for she rarely gets to be girlish and it is a joy to watch.

When they drop into a companionable silence, he tips his head towards the hearth and the bowl of food being kept warm there for her. “I brought your dinner, wench.”

She stretches out her legs and tangles her feet with his even as she grimaces.

“Honestly? After that, I think I’ll eat a bit later on.”

/-/-/-/-/

The first time she takes him into her mouth, she feels desperately clumsy and doesn’t really enjoy it at all in the beginning, particularly as she has the voice of Lolla clearly ringing through her head. She has no doubt that the dear little woman’s advice is sound, but it really is very distracting as she brushes her lips over the beautifully flawed, scar-etched body of Jaime on her way down to his cock.

_Start with licking and kisses._

_Gently suck._

_You don’t have to swallow the whole damned thing. Use your fingers too, if you feel like there is too much of him. Is there too much of him, Enni?_

She is nervous, but given the amount of time she has spent on or under Jaime’s mouth already, this is something Brienne really wants to do.

She can’t bear to look at his face as she runs the tip of her tongue over him and she finds herself distracted by the softness of the skin it finds. It is odd, that a thing so hard should be covered by something so delicate and she feels it far more with her tongue than she ever has with her rough, callused fingers. She takes a shaking breath and covers him with her mouth. Not as much as she really wants to and surely not as much as he would like, but she tries. She is truly scared of hurting him with her teeth and it doesn’t take long for an unfamiliar ache to begin in her jaw as she moves her head only a little, just wanting deeply to at least attempt to please him as he has her. So often.

It only takes her a short while, however, to realise that whilst she is busy feeling awkward and entirely unskilled, Jaime is nearly falling to pieces beneath her. There is a low, almost guttural moan and she flicks her attention up over the contours of his body to find his head lifted, his arms flung out wide and his eyes darker than she has ever seen them. His mouth is hanging open and his breath is coming short. As their gazes connect he nods, as if he is simply unable to do anything else. It gives her some confidence and she laves the tip of him with her tongue, their eyes still locked, making him moan even as her fingers work him uncertainly. But then she has to drag her eyes away from his, finding the weight of his expectation too heavy on her.

_I don’t know what I’m doing._

She concentrates instead on the feel of him moving inside her mouth, on her hand and on breathing. This is all so strange to her.

Then Jaime changes everything. His fingers curl into her hair, tightening and pulling and she has a flash of worry about Lolla’s warning about it. But the warning isn’t needful. Jaime pulls her head suddenly and entirely away from his cock and physically urges her to move her face toward his. When he manages to speak, his voice is almost unrecognisable. Overtaken by need.

“Here. _Please_ ,” he looks at her and begs.

_He begs._

She moves quickly and within what feels like a moment, she finds her mouth crushed to his. He kisses her almost brutally, though his fingers swiftly drop away from her head and he wraps them over the ones she has left behind, unmoving as they now are, over his cock. He guides her fingers even as he pushes his own tongue in past her lips and it is only a few, short movements of their joined hands and sparring tongues before his back arches and he cries out his release into the dim candlelight.

Brienne gently moves, laying herself down, curling herself into his side, her head resting on his shoulder. She watches him, his features and his body shining with sweat as his breathing begins to slow. She raises the hand that was clasped by his, a little sticky with him though it is, to his chest and waits for his heartbeat to slow.

And then she is driven to speak with honesty. “Well, that felt faintly ridiculous.”

He just rolls his head lazily in her direction and slowly shakes it, grinning all the while.

She hasn’t yet known him to be so quiet in the bedchamber, at least when his mouth isn’t otherwise occupied. “Jaime, are you speechless?”

He coughs and forces out a single, defiant word. “No.”

She believes he is and it gives her the most extraordinary feeling of power. And though she is not one for it, generally, she decides to tease him a little, smiling shyly as she does so. No matter that she is rarely good at it. “I don’t think that was very well done. I think I can get better.”        

Jaime simply laughs happily and pulls her back to him, kissing her again until she forgets herself.

As it happens, she _does_ get better. Their familiarity with each other’s bodies is not inconvenient, after all. They have always danced well and they learn about each other’s pleasure very quickly.

Though it should feel more than faintly ridiculous when, a few moons or so later, Brienne finds herself staring directly at Jaime’s cock after he climbs onto her bed and rests his head close to the tight curls of hair that cover her. Somehow it doesn’t, even if it takes her a little while to fully grasp his meaning. She props herself up on her elbow, running her gaze over him and up to his face. His look is challenging. Then she understands.

“Oh…together?”

He nods and raises an eyebrow. “Consider it a form of sparring.”

He has her right then and she knows that he knows it. Though she thinks for a moment about a small technicality she can’t quite grasp. “Jaime, who actually wins?”

A thoroughly sinful smile slowly appears on his features and that alone sends a deep tremor through her. “I’m not sure. We both do, I think.” He nudges at her closed thighs with his stump, all flashing teeth, shining eyes and eagerness. “Now open your legs a little, wench. I’m at a distinct disadvantage here. It’s very unsporting of you.”

She does so and she smiles too, laughing freely as her lips fall to him.

_There is such ease in this. In us._

It isn’t long before both of them win, quite well.

/-/-/-/-/

“It is interesting, brother mine,” Tyrion says dryly.

“What, Tyrion?”

“I don’t recall any of the other chambers I’ve seen in Evenfall having wooden panelled walls.”

_Why must the short people in my life be so bloody clever?_

“So?”

His brother looks around his bedchamber, taking in details, before walking directly to the panel that accesses Brienne’s chamber. “I would gamble a hundred golden dragons on a certain lady’s bedchamber having nearly identical panelling. In fact...”

He reaches out towards the grain of the wood. “ _Stop_ , Tyrion,” Jaime bites out harshly. Tyrion turns back to him, surprised at his vehemence. “What you haven’t seen can’t hurt _her_.”

His brother lowers his hand and paces back to him, looking up with mismatched eyes that seem almost hurt at his insinuation. “You can trust me on this matter, Jaime. Absolutely.”

“I know, Tyrion,” he says. “It’s not _you_ I don’t trust.”

‘The Queen’ is the phrase that hangs between them, unspoken, and they both know it. It is a dangerous thought to have, maybe even riskier to offer, even if it is done silently. But Jaime simply doesn’t know what could happen to his brother or his wench should good fortune swing away from Tyrion once more. If he is forced to speak.

“Listen to me, brother. I’m no idiot. The Queen’s rule has stabilised the whole fucking world. I can see that, even from this small island. I’ll serve her. Loyally. But I’m not interested in the game of thrones. Neither is Brienne. You are, because you have to be.” He nods towards the panel, leaning forward to catch his brother’s gaze at an equal height. “Understand this, though. I will _not_ see her harmed by it.” His voice is steely with conviction, even as he slumps back into a chair and lets out a quiet sigh, his eyes still locked with his sibling’s. “And I don’t think _you_ would, either.”

Tyrion nods solemnly and climbs onto the other wooden chair facing him. For a long time, they are silent and Jaime can feel his brother measuring him. Though, after a while, his eyes change and a positively leering smile starts to spread across his features. Jaime waits for the inevitable.

“Is she…”

“Still a maid?” he interrupts sharply, hating the phrase with a particular passion even more than he ever has before. “Yes.”

Tyrion laughs, loud and long. “That wasn’t _quite_ what I was going to ask, Jaime.”

His answering tone is light. “I’m _well_ aware of that, brother mine.”

“And it’s true, isn’t it?” Tyrion asks, clearly caught by the wonder of the idea.

Jaime sighs. “Yes, little brother. We are not married and there will be no children. I keep oaths now. Please try not to faint in shock.”

Tyrion leans forward, intent on knowing at least one important thing. “You are happy though? Both of you?”

Jaime smiles softly. “Yes.”

/-/-/-/-/

He wants to bury himself inside her.

He needs it so much.

He needs to feel her tight around him, where his fingers can’t quite reach.

There is always the briefest moment, whenever he watches her start to keen and shudder, that her eyes reflect nothing but her own shock, her utter disbelief that this should even be happening to her. And though he loves the innocence still present within her in these precious moments, as much as he selfishly almost craves them (they are so _of_ her, of his Brienne), he wishes she could throw her doubts entirely away. Jaime worries that even as she continues to doubt herself, she is doubting him.

He can’t bear the thought of it. He knows the whole world still doubts him, for all that most of it has long since been lost to him. But not her, he hopes.

_Not her._

/-/-/-/-/

Jaime takes a heavy knock whilst sparring with Kholo and asks to see Maester Arth in privacy.

“Since when have you ever been shy about stripping off in front of anybody, Ser?” the busy man grumbles under his breath as he leads him to the tiny chamber that serves as his study.

Once the door is closed, he helps Jaime out of his tunic and nods, without any indication of judgement. “I see.” He raises an eyebrow. “You will be pleased, I think, to know I had no idea. And I am considered moderately observant.” He starts to feel around Jaime’s collarbone, making him wince a little. “Should I be offering the Lady some moon tea?” he asks, politely.

Jaime looks at the Maester seriously. “It doesn’t guarantee she will not get with child. And there will be no children. We both have oaths to keep.”

“That is admirably restrained of you both,” the dark-haired man says quietly as his fingers firmly move over one of the telling red marks situated near Jaime’s hurt.

His breath hisses through his teeth as the Maester suddenly applies pressure to the slender bone.

“It _is_ , isn’t it?” says Jaime, well aware he is starting to sound a little tetchy.

The Maester’s fingers continue their examination with great care and skill and neither of them talks for a short while. But as he starts to manipulate Jaime’s arm, testing his range of movement, the balding man speaks again. “Should the situation change...”

“It won’t _. It can’t_.” Jaime’s irritability has quickly developed into frustration.

“I understand,” Maester Arth says, with no lack of warmth. “But I am here for any physical issues that may arise. And there may come a time when children will not be an issue. Please remember that.” Then he narrows his eyes at the knight before him and coolly smiles. “Do treat her with care, Ser. And do bear in mind I’ve known her since she was quite young and that I have access to a frankly alarming array of poisons.”

Jaime chuckles lightly as the Maester removes his fingers from his arm. “You won’t need them. We are happy. I hope we will remain so.”

“Good.” Maester Arth assists him back into his tunic and goes so far as to carefully tie the cord at its neck, just as Brienne had done in his chamber this morning. The Maester doesn’t blush or attempt to say sorry, though. The memory of his wench and her stuttering, needless apology makes Jaime smile.

“It isn’t broken. Two days of rest should be enough.” Maester Arth grins. “And please try to avoid the more vigorous instances of...sucking? Biting?” He pauses and furrows his brow as he considers the needs of his patient before grinning again. “Only around the injury, of course.”

“I’ll try, Maester,” Jaime says, laughing a little. “Thank you.”

/-/-/-/-/

Sometimes, his words make her blush as if she were still entirely untouched by him.

She slams into his chamber and leans on the closed door behind her, her eyes dark.

“Take your clothes off, Jaime.”

 _Somebody’s been sparring_.

And she’s being charmingly direct. He really does like that about her. She often hides the shy girl inside under a strangely bewitching mixture of gentle actions and blunt words. But today, at least, he wants to _play_.

“It’s all work with you, wench,” he says, turning from the window, unhurriedly pulling off his tunic and dropping it from a languidly extended finger. He adopts an unrealistically girlish tone, throwing her own words back at her, along with some others he knows her well enough to realise she wishes she could say. “Jaime, take your clothes off. Oh, Jaime, kiss me until I sigh like a maiden in a song.”

He takes a step, closing the distance between them. “Jaime. Suckle on my teats until I am sopping wet for you.”

The Evenstar gasps, her blue eyes bright with want. He grins knowingly.

A few more deliberately slow steps and now he can almost taste the smell of her, she is so close. “Please, Jaime,” he sing-songs. “Lick my cunt until I scream your name.”

Her mouth drops open and her breath comes short.

He leans in and gazes up at her with a heated look that is softly chiding. “Honestly, Brienne,” he drawls, his voice now honey on skin. “And I thought slavery was _forbidden_ on Tarth?”

In a mere moment, he finds himself propelled backwards onto the bed, watching as the maid suddenly straddling him has to fight her way out of her tunic in her urgency.

When her flushed face (half full of need, half furious, he believes) finally emerges from the tangled folds of material, he bites his lip and then smiles, lifting his fingers to stroke her cheek before dropping them teasingly to her right nipple, as she whimpers.

“Well,” he says, “this is just _delightful_.”

/-/-/-/-/

It has been over six moons since she breathlessly spoke of a tankard in a corridor, but she is still surprised that he wants her, for all that his every action has shown he means it. She doesn’t doubt him for a moment, but she carries the weight of a lifetime of judgement with her and it is still too heavy to throw off.

Yet she knows that when she nips at his inner thigh or when she runs her tongue over the oddly delicate skin behind his knees, he will fall. She can bring him to a soft keening by merely gently stroking his ears or the dimples above his buttocks. And when she drags her short fingernails firmly down over the planes of his shoulders or bites down on the meat of his chest, she is aware he will almost growl at her, stricken with need.

So she decides to let her heart believe him.

And seeing the want in him, so very closely, helps her do so, even if it only makes her want him more. And how she wants. How they both still want. They are normally so careful in the bedchamber, but there are times when his hardness brushes her wiry hair and they find themselves frozen, though their eyes burn. It is even worse when they wake to find themselves so close to being joined that it risks them. It would be so easy to take him inside. They are naked want, in these tortuous moments, but then one or the other of them always find the will to go another way.

And it is not all about pleasure.

They sleep far less badly, but the dreams and pain that have assailed them both for so long are not entirely gone. Even now, she occasionally wakes in the night, the memory of pointed teeth fresh in her mind, her hair plastered to her head, the sweat of her edged with the stench of fear. He will always be there, holding her, almost crooning soft words to her, bringing her back to herself.

And she will ever love him for it.

/-/-/-/-/

It’d only taken him hours, after they first kissed, really kissed, to discover that there are precious, paired places on her flesh, situated midway between the sharp blades of her hipbones and the hair that hides her cunt with such a thick, determined modesty, that he adores. Points he can tease and lick and caress. Points that invariably make her moan in frankly wanton need, making her hips cant towards him and filling the air with the musk of her. They make her lose herself. Not to mention that place on the small of her back, where her spine demands his lips, with tiny little pieces of soft skin on either side of it that seem to need him more, her arse rocking backwards, her legs falling open beneath or above him. That almost makes her shatter.

But it isn’t all about lust and pleasure. There is comfort, too.

The wear and tear of so many years of war has a grip on them both. Some mornings, they can barely hold one another, waking to bones that ache and joints stiffened into near uselessness. Then they will allow themselves to begin the day gradually, low moans of discomfort softened by gentle kisses and quietly uttered words about changing weather.

They spend a lost afternoon exploring each other with serious purpose. Both of them have bodies that are maps of past pain. And scars can be difficult. Surprising. Not always pleasantly so. They have each sometimes found the other flinching at the softest of touches. In some places, where wounds healed when they were open, the skin is thin and almost insensitive to anything. Others, mostly the ones heavy with roped, strangely worked tissue, can feel too much. So they move their fingers slowly over each other’s flesh, each being guided by the other.

There are other times, still, when pain rages through his right arm, almost burning, and he doesn’t understand it, when his long lost fingers scream at him; when the pins and needles hurting his lost flesh and bone are hammers and swords.

_How can something that isn’t there be so painful?_

She has always helped him, when it is like this. During the Winter War, she would lay herself next to him, unmoving, but there, a solid body he could grasp, safety in his agony. He knows that he often gouged furrows into the precious skin of her waist with his fingernails, when his discomfort was at its height. Pale reminders of some of them are still there and they fill him with guilt.

He’d borne his pain in silence, for the loathed Kingslayer couldn’t afford to be seen as weak in front of those around them. She bore him silently too, even though, countless times, he felt the muscles of her under his fingers, tensing unbearably as his hurt spilled uncontrollably out of him, wounding her as well.

_And she never, ever mentioned it._

Things are so different now.

Brienne knows when he is hurting, as she always has, but now she folds him in her long arms, cradling him in warmth in the night, letting words of comfort fall from her lips as she carries him through his pain.

And he loves her so much for it.

/-/-/-/-/

 


	12. The Nearly Marriage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The war is over. Some of them hadn’t thought that they would outlive it. And yet...
> 
>   
> Banner by [Ro Nordmann](http://ro-little-shop-of-wonders.tumblr.com)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this last part of the reposting this of fic, I just want to give extra thanks to the many of my readers who have been so supportive, of late. And extra biscuits must go, of course, to Roseheart, who has to bear with me the most of all.
> 
> There will be more.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own it not at all.

CHAPTER ELEVEN – THE NEARLY MARRIAGE

 

As used to guard duty as he is, Jaime is utterly bored. He stands at the Evenstar’s shoulder, merely trying to keep awake as a garishly dressed merchant from Storm’s End endlessly complains to Brienne about the price of Tarthian ham.

_Ham._

Gods be good, she shouldn’t be listening to an idiot blathering on about pig meat. She should be in the practice yards. He really hopes Fredrick recovers soon, as this would normally be his duty, but the castellan has fallen prey to a fever and is currently abed in his quarters, with Lolla no doubt trying to drown him with some form of broth.

Jaime resists the urge to grimace, curse or bodily drag the anxious, moustachioed man away to kick him down the steps of Evenfall Hall, as his dear wench stubbornly holds her ground.

“The price you pay is the same price I have to pay, Graston,” Brienne says. She is starting to sound a little irritated herself, though as it only manifests as a light edge to her voice, Jaime doubts anybody other than he and Pod notice it. “And I hold the lands on which the pigs forage. I can’t make hardworking smallfolk drop their prices to below the one they offer me.” She suddenly turns to him, looking at him with the utmost seriousness and Jaime almost flinches in surprise at her question. “What do you think, Ser Jaime?”

_Why are you asking me about ham?_

It is a moment before he can answer. “It would be unreasonable to force the traders of Tarth to accept anything other than fair coin for their goods,” he says, flicking a dark, bleak gaze towards this Graston, making him take a half-step backwards. For good measure, he makes sure his final words on the matter are sharp with menace. Being the Kingslayer still has some advantages, even here. “The price is the price.”

Brienne seems to spend an age looking at him, considering his words with unnecessary gravitas. Jaime thinks it strange that she should be devoting so much thought to ham, but doesn’t react to her continued scrutiny, her eyes unreadable walls of astonishing blue. After an _almost_ unreasonable amount of time, she turns back to the man.

“Ser Podrick?” she asks shortly.

The knight to his right nods. “Agreed.”

The odd moment passes and boredom returns with a vengeance. Jaime thinks nothing more of it until much later in the evening. Two blue cloaks have been knighted today and the Sea Inn is heaving with people in various states of insensibility. He and Pod have managed to take a tiny table in the corner. It is the one farthest from the door, which has led to him being here rather longer than he would have liked, for all that the celebrations have been entertaining. Jaime really needs to piss though, so he is making a tentative escape plan, noting a possible way out through the solid mass of large strong bodies, when the irritating little ham trader flits through his consciousness.

He turns to his friend. “Pod. Why did she ask us about the ham?”

Pod shakes his head hopelessly. “She asked _you_ about the ham, Jaime.”

“Why did she ask me about ham?”

Pod just laughs gruffly. “What do you know about ham, Jaime?”

“I know how to eat it.”

“Yes. That’s right. So…?”

Jaime pointedly ignores the fact that Pod is speaking to him somewhat like a child and just shrugs. He isn’t quite sure, at this point, quite how many times his tankard has been emptied and his head feels pleasantly fuzzy.

Pod snorts and leans in more closely, lowering his voice. “Perhaps she wasn’t asking you about ham.”

He thinks about how her gaze had lingered on him and in a single, bright moment, he understands. “She was just _looking_ at me?” Jaime whispers. Uncertain, he stares down into his tankard. “I don’t know, Pod. She didn’t seem very happy.”

Pod speaks into his ear, his words a little foggy with ale. “Well, she can hardly climb on top of you in the Great Hall, can she? I think she likes your head attached to the rest of you.” He pats Jaime firmly on the shoulder, grinning widely. “You blind fool. She’s been doing it for years.”

The younger knight rises unsteadily to his feet, chuckling as he goes to get his own tankard refilled.

_Years?_

Jaime finishes his drink and leaves before Pod returns, raising his stump in farewell as he forces his way between two enormous knights from the Bear Isle. Pod doesn’t seem to mind, just waving at Jaime as he goes.

/-/-/-/-/

Brienne is reading a red, leather-bound book on the martial practices of the Summer Isles when Jaime walks slightly unsteadily through the open panel to his chamber. He comes to a stop by the side of the bed and she watches him sway just a tiny amount as he looks at her triumphantly. “Wench. I know what you’ve been doing.”

She closes her book and places it carefully on the floor next to her. It is a rare copy and worth preserving. “Jaime, are you drunk?”

He either doesn’t hear her or chooses not to listen, an insensible grin plastered all over his face. “Ham. Your secret is out.” He clambers atop the bedclothes, crawling across to her on his forearms and knees, only to lie down and grip her tightly about her waist, his calves wrapping around her left leg.

Brienne smiles at him as he nuzzles his face into her ribs, shutting his eyes with a contented sigh.

“I knew it was risky,” she says, “but I was _so_ bored. What do I know of ham?” She glances down towards the wet toes of his boots and really hopes it has been raining, though she fears not. She sighs. “Pod told you, I suppose?”

“He does have all of the knowledge when it comes to women,” he mumbles against her. One green eye cracks blearily open. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She doesn’t answer, now convinced that he has pissed on his own boots, only to rub them on her bed and breeches. “Are you going to sleep like this?”

“Yes,” he replies quite happily, “I sleep all the better with you. I need my sleep. I have to be very bored tomorrow.” He yawns. “Clever wench. I’ve spent all these years being so polite. Now I can ogle you as much as I like.”

“ _Ogle_ , Jaime?”

He just snores softly in response. Brienne looks down at him, fondly, despite his boots. She has often seen drink turn some men into monsters, quick to anger and prone to beating their womenfolk. It would never be his way. In fact, in recent times, Jaime has only been truly drunk rarely and tries to avoid it when he is morose, preferring the comfort of long arms and a warm bed instead. So when he does get befuddled in his cups he tends towards these rather overwhelming bouts of affection.

She laughs quietly as she tries to pry his arms from about her waist and his legs from their entanglement with her own. It takes a good few attempts, because as soon as she has struggled to free one limb, another will wrap back around her.

“Like a limpet,” she mutters when she finally manages to roll him over to the other side of the bed, before stripping off her breeches with a grimace and settling herself under the covers.

He wakes in the morning, somewhat confused and with a headache he plaintively describes as atrocious. Brienne watches and waits as he rises and makes his way over to the table, swilling his mouth out and moving to spit into the grate of the cold fireplace before he strips and washes. He is scrubbing the side of his neck when all movement ceases.

He turns slowly back towards her, his gaze narrowed. “So. _Whenever_ you’ve seemed bored?”

She shrugs, unashamed. “For some years, though I stopped for a while after Fallsong. And occasionally, I _am_ just bored.” She doesn’t mention that since they have really been together, the nature of her private thoughts has grown positively indecent. But then, she knew so little before. She had learned much from the chatter of women, yes, but a lot of it seemed to centre on traits she would never have, like ways of being attractive to a man. It had all seemed a bit false to her.

Jaime finishes washing, chuckling on and off. Brienne would guess he is thinking back through their time here, his views on certain events changing. When he is done, he comes back to her and holds her, with less insistence than he’d shown last night, but no less feeling.

Within the hour a new pattern is set for them. If anything, their warmth and affection is suddenly even more obvious in their small space in the world. Smiles come more freely. They touch with even more ease. They will show everything here that they can’t anywhere else.

Outside of their paired chambers, it is different. A battle almost seems to commence, with any semblance of want or longing turned into outward displays of indifference, seriousness or outright boredom. Within days, Jaime is as adept as Brienne at the art. He has spent so many years visually rebuffing the revulsion of others, after all. It is a simple enough transfer of skills.

A sennight later and the stars are bright above her, the hour late as she heads in and up to her chamber. Brienne is weary after a day of a thousand niggling issues that seemed to require her presence in the town below and in Evenfall Hall with no sense of order. She loves her home beyond reason, but it does have a lot of stairs.

The moment she enters her darkened chamber, she finds herself pinned up against the back of the door. She doesn’t bother reacting. The initial movement alone tells her that it can only be him.

“ _Filthy_ wench,” Jaime grins up at her in the low firelight, clearly not meaning it at all.

She knows what he is referring to, of course. Late this morning, after a series of short but increasingly insolent looks of indifference on his part had left her heated with want, Brienne had almost felled him with a look of such stupendous boredom, it could’ve cracked stone. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she blushes, convincing neither of them.

“Come now, Brienne, don’t be shy. The stables. I’m not sure what you were thinking, but I’ve been half-hard ever since.” He presses a slow kiss to her lips. “What _were_ you thinking, by the way?”

If it is possible, she blushes even more. There is no way she could ever tell him that she had simply wished all the others away, biting the inside of her cheek as she wanted nothing more than to taste him, right there. To kneel in front of him and take him into her mouth. To please him.

Brienne can’t say it. No. It isn’t her way. Yet she has a way of her own. And the chances are extremely good that he’ll reciprocate.

She pushes him away from her and smiles. “My feet are hurting, Jaime. Let me take my boots off and I’ll show you.”

/-/-/-/-/

They sit on the bed, leaning against the dark headboard, Brienne’s cheek almost delicately perched on his shoulder.

“No, I’m fine,” she replies, despite the fact that she clearly isn’t. She picks at the edge of the blanket that covers them, in a way he has seen so many times before. Though it is a habit that has changed of late. Something has been bothering her for a while now, leaving her increasingly lost in thought and distant at odd times. Jaime thinks it is important, but doesn’t want to push her, so he waits to see if today is the day she will speak.

It is and just a few, quietly spoken words hit him like a warhammer.

“I’ll never bleed for you, Jaime.”

He reels inside. “You said you weren’t raped,” he bites out, a surge of anger flooding through him, only to immediately understand how wrong it would be to rage at _her_. So wrong. He lifts his hand across his body and strokes her face. “Please know, Brienne, it doesn’t change how I think of you, if you were.”

She just smiles at him. “I _wasn’t_.” She becomes serious, her eyes pools of deceptively calm water as she waits for him to think.

It doesn’t take long at all before a thousand fragments of unasked and unanswered questions fall into place within him. Alongside one that was answered, with the embarrassment of a true maid.

And it hurts. It hurts.

_I left her there._

“Harrenhal,” he whispers. He repeats his own words, from years past, and feels wretched as they fall from his lips. “’I only rescue maidens’. I’m sorry, Brienne.”

His wench presses a soft kiss to his shoulder. “Don’t be, Jaime. Never be. You didn’t have to come back, but you did. I should’ve _died_ that day.” He tries not to think of her being pinned down by strong hands in an ugly pink dress, her fate uncertain, of her being dragged by men into a bear pit, as she shrugs gently against him and her story finally tumbles out of her. “Anyway, I’d already been examined before you were sent away.” _Qyburn_ , his mind hisses, his view of the man sinking yet further as Brienne continues. “And I was too scared. So scared. After the woods. I had to be able to _fight_ , Jaime.”

Her arms reach around him, seeking comfort and he replies in kind, holding her to his chest as she speaks on, her voice tremulous yet strong. “The only thing I could think was that even if they took me, if I failed to fight them off, I at least wouldn’t allow them to take my maiden’s blood. I couldn’t bear the thought of any of them carrying it on their skin. It was mine. I _am_ still a maid, Jaime, and I am _yours_ , but I won’t bleed for you.” Her eyes flicker downwards in needless shame. “I hope you aren’t disappointed in me.”

He turns a little and holds her even closer to him. “ _No_. I’m not. Did it help?” he asks, intently lightly.

She almost grins against his skin. He can feel it. “I can’t be sure if it helped, but I bit off an ear.”

“So I heard,” he says, “and I am proud of you, Brienne. Of your will to fight.” He thinks of that young, idealistic, innocent woman he abandoned in a ruined tower and his heart hurts. “I hate that you felt you had to make that choice. I hate that it happened to you. But I will never blame you for it. How could I?”

She looks at him gratefully and he can’t help but despise that too. “It must’ve been painful,” he says, the words feeling inadequate to the task.

Brienne grimaces, lifting up her sword hand. Jaime tangles his fingers with hers as she goes on. “It hurt, though not as badly as my childhood Septa always insisted it would. Just a few moments, some mild pain and a small streak of blood on the back of this finger.” She wiggles the middle finger of the hand he is holding, so he lifts it and presses a tender kiss to a knuckle there. Brienne sighs before she goes on. “There was no pleasure in it, but that was not my aim.” She pulls their joined hands towards her and kisses his, deliberately slowly. “But I’ve learnt it since,” she finishes.

Jaime’s breath almost stops.

_I love her so much._

He does. He really does. But he has to ask. “How did you know how to...?”

Brienne laughs and he revels in it. “It wasn’t _exactly_ hard to work out, Jaime. And you would be astonished to hear women talking when they are working with a needle. Did you know some of them _hide_ a needle at the edge of their mattress, in the piping of the ticking, before their bedding? Just in case they don’t bleed? I’ve heard it said that many women don’t.”

He gapes. “Women who aren’t _Lolla_ talk about these things?”

Brienne nods surely. “Yes, all of the time. And I couldn’t help but listen. Though much of what they said was useless to me and I’m terrible with a needle.” She reluctantly pulls herself away from him and rises from the bed, pacing over to the table in the corner. She opens one of the two incongruously slender drawers in it before facing him again. “Here, this is my only remaining piece of embroidery from my youth. Sadly, it was always the best one.”

She carefully throws a small piece of material at him. He remembers it, even as it unfurls and curves in the air, landing on the edge of the blankets, forcing him to reach out and stop it from falling to the floor. During their very first morning together on Tarth, when everything had seemed so insurmountable, so impossible, Jaime had seen Brienne only manage to retrieve two personal items from this, her childhood room. A saddle in a state of massive disrepair, small parts of which he still often wears. And this. A tiny, frayed segment of linen, retrieved from under the frame of her then broken bed, the feather mattress long since stolen.

He has never really seen it before, though. On that day, years ago, he had merely watched his wench reach desperately under the pile of dark wood, wincing as her skin was pierced by splinters, but undeterred by them. And then she had pulled out this little scrap, still on her knees as she smiled wryly down at it, before she folded it carefully so it could be tucked safely behind her swordbelt.

He lifts it up, resting it on his palm and finally he sees the thing she was so desperate to save. Almost. He tilts his head from side to side, trying to grasp what he is supposed to be looking at. When he can’t, he shifts his hand about. It serves no purpose.

In the end, he gives up and grimaces at her. “Is it a badger?”

Brienne laughs, utterly freely, and the sound catches in his chest. “No, Jaime. It’s a _cat_.”

He laughs then, too. “Remind me never to ask you to darn my socks.”

She looks at him reprovingly. “I wouldn’t do it, anyway. And as I recall, most of your socks are only fit for burning.”

He reaches out to her with his stump, as ever unfailingly astonished when she moves to him without hesitation to stroke it with her fingers. “Yet still I wouldn’t risk them. Come here. I have a sudden need to hold a maiden.”

Brienne sits on the edge of the bed and flops back, her head landing squarely on his thighs. He runs his hand through her damp, recently combed hair, grinning apologetically when a short, blunt fingernail catches a tangle that has already managed to find the time to exist in her short locks.

Brienne just smiles up at him.

His dear maid. His, he thinks with amazement. Yet entirely her own.

_Just as it should be._

/-/-/-/-/

Brienne is lying face down. Her arms are reaching out, fingertips hanging over each side of the bed, her legs spread wide and the last remnants of sheer exhilaration thrumming through her. She looks up over her shoulder, barely able to catch a glimpse of her knight, knelt as he is between her thighs. “Where have you put my bones, Jaime? I’m sure they are gone.”

She can almost feel him smile. “They’re just sleepy, my sweetling,” he says quietly. “They’ll be back soon enough.” His weight shifts on the mattress and his mouth catches the slick point at the base of her spine that always makes her keen. It does so now, a hot trembling shooting through her already sated body, the sound from her lips high and so unlike her as her hips squirm up towards him.

Jaime laughs, a soft, happy thing, and he rocks back into his kneeling position. “If I were not so busy being banished, I would whisk you away to live in Dorne. They seem to have all of the best ideas. Even their _bottles_ are clever.”

Brienne can only nod in agreement, her ruined cheek buried in the pillow under it, her utter contentment written by uneven teeth and a sharp blush. She doesn’t care. He isn’t wrong.

She becomes still, completely relaxing into the bed for a few long moments. But then she hears Jaime’s hand begin to move, the familiar tug as he pleasures himself, a sound she always welcomes, even adores.

But not this evening.

Brienne rises to her own knees with a long groan, rolling her shoulders, amazed at the lack of tension in them, and turns, tapping on Jaime’s fingers until they fall away from his hard cock. “I was just enjoying the view,” he grumbles, only to bite his lip as she jerks her head towards the pillows. “You absolute harridan,” he grins, twisting down onto his back, meaning anything but.

“Nothing but nag, nag… _oh._ ”

Brienne has picked up the small, wide-bottomed flask that she had somehow failed to upend earlier from the end of the bed, pouring a little of the sweet, citrus scented oil from it onto his stomach, immediately sweeping it up over him in a wide arc with her right hand. The man beneath her stretches sinuously, pressing his ribs against her fingers more firmly. She explores his skin, the tapestry of him changed by oil anointing it, making her hands tingle where they rub, as he writhes.

It doesn’t take long for his own fingers to slide across his stomach, hoping to continue what he’d already begun. Brienne will have none of it, softly lifting his wrist away from his body and leaning over him, her eyes, just above his, warm, but slightly stern.

“You made me wait for _ages_. So you’re going to wait for a little while. It’s only fair.”

She kisses him and then, with characteristic meticulousness and care, she sets about making him scream.

/-/-/-/-/

She is sitting on her bed in nothing but her smallclothes and her shortest, baggiest nightshift. It was originally meant for a far shorter man of a certain portliness, Brienne believes. She had seen it years ago, in Lolla’s weaving loft. Realizing her interest in it, the dear woman had given it to her on the spot, refusing any payment for the item. Brienne smiles as she remembers leaving some coin on the small table next to her loom and the sharp reprimand that act had earned her when Lolla ascended to Evenfall Hall for the night.

She looks down at her legs, bare and freckled as they are from mid-thigh. The shift is positively indecent on her and she wiggles her toes happily. She has started to lose at least some of the negativity she has always attached to her own body. In recent years, she has even started to like her legs, though she is sure that somebody else might have had some small influence on her opinion.

_“She can kill men with her thighs.”_

_Yes. I can. And they go on for days, or so I’m told._

She sighs and picks up the various letters resting on the bedding next to her. The Evenstar’s varied duties can be exceptionally dull at times, but they are all important and she settles herself in to go through her recent correspondence. This batch is not quite as tiresome as some, though, and unusually, she doesn’t even register Jaime’s presence until he is leaning against the dark wood of the bedpost, staring at her legs quite openly.

He likes this shift rather well, too. The first time he’d seen her in it after they had finally begun he’d reached out from an arm’s length away, pinching at the hem of the soft, worn cloth, lifting it up with approval as the loose folds that fall all the way from the neckline simply allowed him to expose her so that his eyes could meander all over her body. “I’ve always meant to ask, Brienne. What exactly is the point of this lovely item?”

She’d stepped into him with a semblance of confidence that they both knew wasn’t there yet, tapping a finger on his nose. “I think you just made it.”

That had been a wonderful night, but he doesn’t look quite so happy now, as his gaze rises to meet hers. “Brienne, it’s _late_. You should stop.”

Sometimes he is like an interfering mother. “I’m almost finished.”

He nods begrudgingly and begins to shuck out of his clothing. Brienne tries to keep her attention on the papers in her hands, but finds it drifts back up to him on and off, to the movements of muscle and skin in a man marked by life and death.

_So beautiful._

She redoubles her efforts and is firm with herself, because there is always work to be done. She is reading a missive from the south when a head rests onto her lap and a nose gently worms its way around the bottom edge of the letter she is taking in. “My Lady Evenstar,” Jaime says, his words making the paper above it move with his voice. “A naked knight has just lain himself down on your bed. For you. He’d love to know what is so fascinating in the outside world, to keep you so distracted.”

She shifts her hands and the letters in them away so she can see all of his face and they look at each other, smiling.

“There is a pig plague in Westeros,” she answers, warmly but bluntly.

He sighs. “Not _pigs_ again?”

“Apparently half of them are now _dead_ , Jaime. There’s a shipment of pigs due in tomorrow. I’ll have to get Fredrick to turn it away.”

She runs her finger over the letter she is reading. “Sunspear was ablaze for three days and the Martells are saying it killed a hundred and fifty-two.” A sentence catches her eye, giving her pause. “Oh. The first flames were green.”

_Wildfire._

They both frown. Wildfire has been forbidden for so long, but it is one of those awful things that once made, apparently cannot be unmade. There will always be somebody willing to produce it now. And as Jaime had once rightly said, some idiots will sell anything for coin. Either way, she will have to gather the Dornish dragon warriors come the morning. Some of them may have lost family or friends in the attack.

Jaime looks at her sympathetically. Leadership is not all fancy armour and handing out orders, as she knows he is well aware. “Anything else?” he asks.

“There are odd rumours of a re-starting of the slavery trade in Meereen. Some reports are more detailed than others. But it seems,” she ruffles through her papers, seeking the right one, “’a few survivors of the old, slaving families have managed to regain significant power’. I’m not sure how. All the information I have here is so _vague_. I thought the Queen had freed or destroyed all of their forces? Where would they get more?”

“From even further east?”

“It’s possible, I suppose.” It makes sense. So little is known about the far reaches of Essos.

Jaime reaches up and tugs the small sheaf of papers from her hands, dropping them carelessly over the side of the bed.

_“Jaime.”_

“They’ll still be there on the morrow, Brienne. Unless the letter grumpkins come in the night to steal them.”

“The letter grumpkins?” she laughs.

“Oh yes. Absolutely dreadful little monsters. When I was learning to write, the letter grumpkins stole my all of my hard work on any number of occasions.”

She knows Jaime struggled to learn his letters when he was young and can well imagine him concocting such a race of beings as a result. “Of course they did,” she says seriously.

He just smiles as his fingers drift up underneath her shift. Her breath hitches in a heartbeat, the light almost-scratch of his calluses over her stomach making her body sing for him instantly. And he knows it. Her nightshift is old and thin from so many launderings and she is well aware that he can see the sudden hardness of her nipples and perhaps even their darkened pinkness through it.

She doesn’t care and he doesn’t appear to mind, either, as he shifts himself about until his mouth can follow where his fingers have already led. His head disappears under the billowing material covering her body and Brienne loses herself in the sensation of his unseen lips roaming over her.

The hot, wet press of his mouth and the tickling of his beard set her to shaking, but as his tongue moves higher and begins to flick over her nipples, she wants to see him too. She frantically pulls the shift over her head, throwing it away across the chamber.

Brienne looks down and the sight of him bestowing so much attention on her small breasts with his mouth is, as ever, almost overwhelming to her. They are barely even present, but Jaime shows them as much care as if the Gods had chosen to give her mountains of soft, womanly flesh for him to suckle on. She had always swung between hating them and ignoring them and never had she dared believe that a man, any man, let alone one like Jaime, would ever do anything but deride her for them.

_But here he is._

His mouth roves freely over the small swell of her right breast and as heat begins to pulse deep inside, she lowers her head and reaches out to his cheek, bringing his mouth to her own. An almost lazy exploration follows, lips and tongues simply touching, until he lifts his head away and drops it to her other aching nipple.

Brienne hears quiet moans escaping her, but watching him lave her skin with such affection is hypnotic. It isn’t long before she is driven to kiss him again, another quiet, gentle thing, before his lips fall away to her chest once more.

It is a warm cycle that repeats.

Again and again.

But then, after some time, when they have just broken another tender kiss, she reaches out and softly brushes a fingertip between his lips, against his teeth.

A silent request. A gentle plea.

Lately, they have been exploring the boundaries of what she can bear when it comes to teeth. It is a delicate process, but Brienne is fast learning that the thrill he has always found in them will not be so hard for her to find as well.

Jaime looks at her, wary for the space of a heartbeat, but then he nods. “As you wish.”

She can’t tear her eyes from him as he lowers his head again. The first gentle pinch of his teeth makes her shiver, but today, it isn’t in fear. Warmth pools inside of her and she can feel that her smallclothes are wet. She can only watch as he pinches at her flesh with the most exquisite lightness and feel as her body reacts as she had desperately hoped it would.

With pleasure.

In moments, she is kissing him again, not realizing at first that she has tangled her fingers quite firmly in his hair.

She lets go and Jaime doesn’t seem to mind, though he does have a point to make. “If you don’t stop pulling me back up here, my tongue will never reach its final destination,” he says softly, pointedly staring downwards.

“I don’t care,” she whispers. “ _Do it again_.”

Words that were once met with only a truly fearful obedience are now met with a compliance of an entirely different kind, his mouth a sharp, happy arc as he bows his head to nibble delicately at a pebbled nipple, making her moan. Though she is distracted by one thing. She runs her shaking fingers through his hair and speaks warmly, if unevenly. “You don’t have to growl _every_ time, Jaime.”

He lifts his head away from her for the barest moment and winks. “Oh, I’m not sure about that, Brienne. I think it lends me a certain air of menace.”

Then he goes right back to what he was doing. With a deliberately small, puppy-like growl.

/-/-/-/-/

She has been driven from the Great Hall by the booming voice of Ser Kyron and the song about her having thrown a goat. Brienne has always loved music and finds it not a little irritating that every single song about her is simply awful.

Never mind. She isn’t about to let a few poor ditties ruin her perfect day.

She unclasps her new cloak as she reaches the top of the stairs, draping the precious material over her left forearm, stroking it until she reaches her chamber door and goes in. She smiles when she sees Jaime is sitting by the unlit fire, waiting for her, his armour gone, not to mention his ridiculous hand, only his old, worn vambrace secured to his empty wrist. His own blue cloak now sits over a plain linen tunic and breeches.

Two unbuckled swordbelts rest across his lap. One of which is hers. He lifts it up and offers it to her hilt first with a wry, slightly mischievous, tilt of an eyebrow and a warm voice. “Ser Brienne.”

It hits her.

_I am a knight._

She is momentarily overwhelmed by a feeling of such joy. She has long since been respected as a warrior. But there is something about today, about becoming a knight, that makes her feel that she has finally captured her dreams. Yet then she glances at the man holding Oathkeeper out to her.

_Well, most of them. And that will suffice._

“Ser Jaime,” she replies with equal warmth, placing her cloak on the back of an empty chair and taking her blade from him. She takes two long steps over to him and leans down, kissing him tenderly. “Thank you,” she says quietly. “You have no idea what today means to me.”

Green eyes drift speculatively over her. “It isn’t over _yet_. Would you care to take a short walk with me? I’ve had an idea.”

Brienne simply nods and Jaime stands. They secure their swordbelts in silence and move to leave.

She reaches for her cloak and he shakes his head, sounding suddenly and oddly nervous. “I hope you won’t be needing it. Come, Brienne. We’ll talk on the way.”

/-/-/-/-/

If it weren’t for the fact that they been doing something of moderate importance, Jaime would be furious that they’d missed Aryena sing. His nearly wife is quite right. She really is very good.

 _My beloved nearly wife_.

Jaime slides a glance to his right. Brienne looks content, just as much as the Evenstar ever publicly can. Outwardly she is calm, her gaze sweeping slowly about the Great Hall, a small smile on her face even when Ser Tratten bellows a note so badly that it must be positively making her howl on the inside.

Somehow, it isn’t. For just a moment, her eyes catch his and Jaime feels a stab of pure elation at what he finds hidden in those blue pools. The shy disbelief that had clouded them when he’d first suggested the purpose of their visit to the Godswood is entirely gone, leaving only the blinding, transcendent happiness which had quickly followed it. A happiness that mirrors his own.

Perfectly.

He watches Brienne as her eyes wander. She is all that he wants in the world. She is truth and honour and light. And despite everything, everything that he has ever been and done, despite every darkness he has caused to be brought down upon her own head, she wants him too.

Accepting all of him.

_I want her in my arms. Now._

He rises to his feet, for naturally they cannot be seen to leave together. Blue eyes swing back towards him, a slight question present.

He leans down to whisper into her ear. They do not touch. “I’m _old_. I’m allowed to go to bed early.”

“I hate you,” she whispers back, almost grinning. Almost.

“No, you don’t.”

“No, I really don’t.” She looks across the hall to where another knight is rising to his feet. “But I was hoping to excuse _myself_. Kyron seems to be gearing up for another round. And if he starts singing the song about the goat again, Oathkeeper might just find itself with another scabbard.”

Jaime holds back a laugh, instead keeping his face serious. “Bloody-minded wench. I’ll be waiting for you. Always.”

“Always,” she replies softly, still regarding Ser Kyron with mild trepidation.

Jaime doesn’t look back as he leaves, just as he knows Brienne isn’t paying him any attention.

They will see each other again shortly.

/-/-/-/-/

Their lips collide and they attempt to scramble out of their clothes. Brienne laughs happily on his mouth as Jaime pulls his tunic up awkwardly over his shoulders with only a little of her help, breaking his lips away for only the briefest moment as he yanks it over his head and lets it fall away before returning his mouth to hers. Brienne’s follows his.

She reaches down between them, deftly untying the laces on both of their pairs of breeches, even as they explore each other’s mouths with their tongues, moaning with the heat of it. Then things get a bit ungainly as they both shuck themselves out of their remaining clothing, refusing to part lips, but with knees and feet colliding as they try to kick their breeches away.

They don’t care. They don’t stop kissing.

She wraps a thick sheet of his hair about her fingers, holding his mouth to hers as they clamber onto the bed, one leg awkwardly following another until they kneel, their bodies formed against each other, small, happy whimpers and moans coming from their sealed lips. There is so much joy here.

She pushes him slowly backwards and she can feel the pressure of his stump on the back her head. He is holding her mouth to his when his back hits the headboard and he stretches his legs out before him.

Still, they don’t stop kissing.

She lifts her leg over Jaime, laughing and teasing his mouth with hers as she straddles him, but she lowers herself and everything stops.

He is right there.

His cock is seated perfectly, ready to move inside her.

They tear each other’s lips apart and freeze.

For what must be eternity, Brienne hears herself taking in short, sharp breaths, like knives cutting through air, wanting nothing more than to keep on moving downwards, to take him in. Then she throws her right arm about his neck, trying to hold herself in place, as Jaime’s head flies forward and he lets out a long, pained cry against her shoulder.

The world is suddenly stripped bare, laid waste, nothing in it now but the nudging tip of his hardness against her wetness, the head of him almost inside her. So close.

So close.

And it is _agony_.

They both start shaking, their heads slowly rolling, their features flooded with need. Wide eyes, blue and green, lock in sadness and desperate gasping is the only thing that can be heard. There is no laughter now. Joy is gone away and all there is left is want.

His stump moves gently to the front of her hip, applying no pressure. She just nods at him infinitesimally. Not wanting this. But then, neither does he.

Together, they move apart.

The very moment his flesh falls away from her, Brienne rocks forward with a wail of frustration, the bridge of her nose connecting hard with his collarbone.

_Am I always to be a maid?_

She turns her face into the crook of his neck, her eyes burning as she reaches down to fold her fingers gently around the skin of his cock. The tip of Jaime is wet. With her.

_I want him so much._

Her tears begin to silently fall as she begins to move her hand over him.

“Are you sure, Brienne?” Jaime’s voice is a strange, sad maelstrom.

Brienne nods against the clenching muscles of his neck. Insistent.

_At least we cannot be denied all pleasure._

He seems to understand and his fingers drop to her wet flesh.

They work on each other, but it is a hollow thing. Mechanical. Almost silent. The sound of moving hands and fingers is no comfort to them. Not tonight. Like windmills, they cannot help but provoke pleasure in one another, grunting and groaning out their ecstasy, their bodies lifted high, even as true happiness seems to be thrown downwards, crashing into the dust.

Brienne is still weeping softly as she shatters on his fingers, her want undiminished. There is pleasure, yes. Yet it feels so small and she is so _empty_.

But then she lifts her head from his skin, damp as it is with her tears and looks at Jaime. His seed is wet and dripping on her hand and on her belly, but his gaze is despondent. And she is clearly not the only one to have wept.

_He feels as empty as I do._

She lifts her other hand to his face, stroking his beard. Her fingers are trembling and her voice sounds strange, even to her own ears. She is sure, though. So sure. “I said it was my final oath. And it is. I will wait for you, Jaime. Always.”

He struggles to speak at all. “Thank you.” But then he draws in a few deep, heaving breaths and tries to speak in his own normal manner, though his voice is strange, too. “And if I may just say so, that oath is vastly improved by your being naked and straddling me.” He shakes his head at his own piss poor attempt at humour, but then continues with a more successful, soft form of affection. “I’m sorry. It was just an observation, my nearly wife.”

She feels his warmth and loves him for it, yet almost crumbles under his words. “Your nearly wife. Nearly, Jaime.” She looks sharply away from him, angry at their situation. _“Nearly.”_

His fingers lance out and catch her chin, pulling her gaze back to his. Now he is the one who is sure. “Brienne. One day. One day.”

She knows what he is saying and it is a promise of his own.

_One day we will be one._

She draws strength from him, as he does from her.

“One day,” she replies softly and kisses him again.

/-/-/-/-/

On some extremely rare occasions, Jaime and Brienne, the friends forged by war, the old comrades-in-arms, as opposed to the Kingslayer and the Evenstar, will make an appearance outside of their chambers. It is never too intimate or indicative of their deeper feelings, but it reinforces the general acceptance of their unusual bond, even if most would never suspect the strength of it.

Since the Long Night, they have eaten things from the soil far more often than would be normal for people of their rank. To this day, they will both even eat potage quite happily. Peasant food, Jaime would have called it once.

It is. But not now. Not to him.

In fact, it is a marker, a badge of those who endured the North in Winter that they will, if it is available, often choose a feeble vegetable stew over the denser and more filling meat dishes on offer.

So it is that they are sitting opposite one another late one evening, each with a bowl of potage, when Jaryn, a tenant farmer, makes his way over to them. A failed candidate for training as a Dragon Warrior, he’d been one of the youngest sailors on the very boat that brought them to Tarth. He’d jumped ship, having already found the sea too harsh a mistress and desperate to keep land under his feet. His skills with a sword had been dire but he’d wanted to remain on Tarth so very much that Brienne offered him a small, vacant farmstead to work. It proved to be a fortuitous choice of gift. What skills Jaryn lacked with a sword, he had in abundance with crops.

He’d been responsible for much of the early success of re-establishing food supplies on Tarth and is now a respected smallholder, if one who lacks the political nous to be influential now, in his own area of skill.

Brienne smiles. “Jaryn. How are you?”

The gangly man grins at her remembrance of his name, all kind brown eyes and dark hair that doesn’t ever seem to want to sit down. “Very well, my Lady Evenstar.” He offers her a small, green bowl. “I have grown something for you.”

She almost shrieks when she sees what is inside the offered vessel. Almost. Jaime can feel it vibrating in the air about him. But instead, all formality falls away from her as she places it on the table, midway between them and grins like a nameday child with a brand new hobby horse.

_“Jaime. Dawnberries.”_

He grins back as memories rush in.

In true Winter, nothing could really grow.

For months, they had existed on preserved meats and the barest scraps of straggling, hardy weeds. It was a monotonous thing. Yet when he and Brienne had been riding south from the Wall to Winterfell, they had stumbled across a dawnberry bush. It was such a joy to see. The dawnberry actually grows whenever there is sun in the North, but it is so named because it will, mere days after the first brief glimpses of sunlight that follow deepest winter, begin to produce abundant and small, sweet fruits. It is a strange and wonderful experience, picking tiny berries, the colour of the rising sun, from branches still coated in frost.

They’d gorged themselves stupid on the things, plucked by chilled fingers, nothing but laughter and sheer happiness as they ate fruit for the first time in so long. Each miniscule morsel was such an explosion of flavour on their tongues that they had groaned and danced their way around the dense thicket, even going so far as to knock each other’s hands playfully out of the way when only a few remained. Once the bush was entirely lacking any little flashes of colour, they’d slumped down next to each other, on their arses in the snow, bellies aching and comparing vivid orange tongues like children as the sun valiantly tried to shine from behind a low, dark cloud.

Jaime shakes himself back to the present. “How did you manage that, Jaryn?” he asks.

The farmer shrugs nervously. “The places near the bases of waterfalls are just about cool enough. It’s a bit wet and the air is thick with water, but with extra drainage it can be done.”

Jaime watches as Brienne slowly reaches out with a lone finger to touch one of the little berries, as if to check that it is really there. A brief peal of very girlish laughter falls from her lips at the contact, turning a few heads across the hall.

The Evenstar is everywhere on Tarth, yet Brienne herself is rarely ever seen.

“I thinks she’s rather pleased, Jaryn,” Jaime says. “Thank you.”

The younger man smiles gratefully, waiting for the Lady to taste his offering, as is customary. It doesn’t, however, quite follow the demands of normal manners. Jaime finds himself caught by a challenge presented in the brightest blue, as Brienne lifts her sword hand and tucks it behind her, at the small of her back. The fingers of her off-hand tap on the table as she shifts her gaze pointedly to his golden one.

 _I’m game_.

Though, naturally, he must protest.

“I can’t pick up anything with it,” he smiles.

“You can cover the bowl with it.”

“As if I would do any such thing.”

“You would, Ser Jaime. You _know_ you would.”

He sighs, radiating the pretence that she could not be more troublesome and complies, the metal cold and heavy against his spine. “Rules?”

“One at a time. And each one must be bitten, before the next is taken.”

He nods and drawls his next words. “Who wins, my Lady?” He watches her fight back a blush for reasons entirely unrelated to berries, loving every moment of it.

People have started to gather around them and Jaime can already hear the clink of coin exchanging hands behind him. Warriors love gambling. And Tarth is full of warriors. Jaime has, for years, been convinced that the possibility of a bet is the swiftest way to gather an army. The merest sniff of one will drag in most able-bodied men from far and wide.

He levels a quick look of concern across the table. It is unneeded. For all that she had once been so sorely hurt by a monstrously vile bet, relatively harmless gambling leaves Brienne unruffled.

She even told him once that hearing people lose coin when she approaches a cloaking threatens her composure, making her want to laugh at them.

In any case, Brienne has long since ceased trying to stamp it out, instead just trying to make sure it never ends in serious injury. “Has anybody here got large numbers?” she asks and a number of people offer their services, including Jaryn. Two cloaks are randomly chosen to count the berries they eat and it is quickly agreed that, as with all games on Tarth, the results will be whispered to the officiator, in this case the farmer himself, who appears to be thrilled to have been offered the task.

They settle into waiting for the hubbub about them to settle down, eyes locked in humour at this odd, impromptu competition and their fingers tapping the worn grain of old wood on each side of the little green bowl.

Jaryn bids them to begin, but it starts slowly.

For both of them, the first small burst of juice on their tongues draws out a groan and they nod at each other happily.

_These are so good._

But only three berries in and the pace starts to pick up. By the time they reach ten, they are lightly slapping each other’s hands away at every opportunity. His golden hand, along with the one that bears Oathkeeper, might be barred from this particular contest, but neither of them had actually cared to mention the ones they are _using_.

What follows makes joyful shouting and laughter ring through Evenfall Hall. For the most part, fingertips quickly dart in and out of the bowl, carrying precious cargo. Yet this is broken by bouts of hands grappling, both of them trying to block access to the tiny berries.

By the time the very last berry is plucked from the bowl by Brienne, everyone is smiling.

Apart from us, Jaime thinks, as they slap their hands over their lips, trying to contain the mass of sweet flesh that makes their cheeks bulge.

 _We must look like overlarge squirrels_.

They stare at each other warmly as numbers are whispered and it transpires that Jaime has won.

It doesn’t matter. It never would.

The crowd around them disperses and Brienne just shrugs at him, uncaring as she contentedly chews the remains of the dawnberries in her mouth. When they are finally gone, she turns to Jaryn, speaking to him with care and dignity.

“Thank you, Jaryn. This was a true gift, one I will remember. Can I, perhaps, hope for more?”

The suggestion is a mistake. The smallholder instantly looks flustered, his own freckles backed by a sudden, fiery redness as he replies. “Not often, my Lady, but whenever I can I will…”

 _“Jaryn,”_ Brienne interrupts firmly, with a smile, trying to set him at ease, “your service to Tarth has been invaluable. I don’t expect you to concentrate on dawnberries. That would be ridiculous. People can’t live on them. If a small bowl happens to come my way, every year or two, that would be wonderful. But even if it never happens again, it won’t matter at all. You have made our island better and I thank you for it. Please know that.”

The farmer, clearly having only ascended to Evenfall Hall expecting to quickly offer the Evenstar a small bowl of berries he has lavished such care upon, understanding that barely any attention would be paid to him at all, seems overwhelmed by her words, and can only bow his head respectfully, muttering his deepest thanks as he walks away.

Jaime watches Brienne’s eyes follow Jaryn as he leaves and his heart grows warm. “You know he will tell his children about this night, don’t you?”

She nods. “Yes.”

“And his grandchildren?”

“I hope so,” she says distractedly. “It would be nice.”

Her eyes do not turn back to him until the farmer is out of sight and he loves her all the more for it.

“You care for them _all._ Don’t you?”

She looks at him as if, for some reason, he is trying to explain to her that swords are made out of metal. Her eyes shine with a conviction that could melt his golden hand. “How could I not?”

His gut twists and he is burning for her. And not just because he wants to fuck her. That has long been so. But it is warmth of her honour that inevitably, always drags him in, because he knows that touching her is like touching the sky.

Well, sometimes.

Within the hour, they are both standing by her table, in her chamber, and things are very different.

Brienne is scowling at him entirely unattractively and Jaime is trying very hard not to laugh. His success is minimal and little rumbles of it shake his chest as he scrubs viciously at the delicate skin just beneath her ear with one of the small scraps of cloth she keeps by her washbowl.

“It’s not funny, Jaime,” Brienne chides, though her eyes are finally starting to shine again and her orange-stained lips keep twitching into an almost smile.

“Quite stubborn, this dawnberry juice, isn’t it?”

“Get it _off_ ,” she hisses. “There’s no way anyone will believe this happened in the Great Hall.”

The lips that had unintentionally inflicted this indignity onto her curl into a grin. “I don’t think we can kiss again tonight, my Lady Evenstar.” He dips his head to flick out a vividly coloured tongue over the far end of a collarbone. “At least, not where anybody can see.”

“Oh,” she says, as the little cloth takes away the last of the damning orange, leaving a patch of her skin almost red raw.

By morning, their teeth and lips still hold the faint hue of sunrise, but there is nothing else to be seen. And the tale of the dawnberry gamble has already stretched its tendrils over most of Tarth.

So nobody makes any further comment on it.

It is only Jaime who happens to know, as he watches her spar in leathers, that The Evenstar has hidden patches of light orange on her skin that they simply didn’t have the time to wash off.

Then again, so does he.

/-/-/-/-/

Yet another Muddle-Handed Melee has arrived, but things are not the same. Halfway through the main event, as Brienne deploys a stunning series of blows with a mace (her weapon of choice this year), driving her short but stocky opponent to his knees, there is an actual whine from her left.

“They won’t fight me,” Jaime complains, his voice high and almost petulant in his metal, standing idle in his place, his golden hand hidden behind her shield.

“I’m not surprised,” Brienne laughs and shouts from inside her helm. “People do tend to like their teeth.” Only two men have taken on the Kingslayer this year and as is usual, he has rather permanently damaged their smiles, even though in one case he’d been forced to nearly clamber onto an unfortunate, if indisputably rude, opponent’s back to prise his helmet off first.

Brienne sweeps her gaze around the field. Around half of the competitors are still on their feet, so this will last a little while yet. She decides to take pity on the man next to her, though it is more like sympathy for herself. Jaime can get so irritable when he is bored. She reaches up, pulling off her blue helm and throwing it towards the nearby ropes. She can’t let go of her mace if she is to continue, so she fumbles as she tugs the thick straps of her longshield away, allowing it to topple onto the mud in front of her before she darts away to pick up a discarded tourney sword.

“What are you _doing_?” Jaime shouts whilst she transfers her primary weapon to her left hand, grasping it close to the head. But when she turns back to him, swinging her new weapon in lazy arcs in his direction, Brienne is sure she can _hear_ him grin.

“It’s been a while. Care to dance, Ser Jaime?” A dark, burnished helm clangs against her own on the ground as he shakes his hair out and chuckles. “I’d be honoured, my Lady Evenstar.”

They drop into their familiar guards, facing each other, both listening for just a moment to the broken noises from the crowd as they begin to swell into a roar.

“Well, _they_ all seem to like the idea,” Brienne says. Pod thunders out his support for her as he reaches over the ropes to retrieve the precious helms.

“I’d expect _him_ to cheer for the woman,” Jaime says wryly, just as they begin to circle one another.

Brienne just laughs. “I don’t think it’s because I’m a woman. I think it’s because I’m _better_ ,” she teases, pushing out her blade in a short, exploratory lunge that is beaten down with no real effort.

“Not if you’re starting like that, you aren’t,” Jaime replies, smiling as he moves in, his blade flashing out. Brienne dances backwards, away from him, blocking a few light thrusts as she goes.

“Why don’t we give them a bit of entertainment for a while?” he continues.

Brienne throws a strong overhand blow as she says, “What do you mean?”

Jaime catches her blade with his own and they move closer together, outwardly straining, their sword edges scraping until the hilts touch. “Do you think you could cope with a bit of six days before the Gates?” he suggests.

_The day he realized he was more than good, once more._

She remembers most of that fight (and it _was_ a fight, so ecstatic had Jaime been to awaken to the fact that his gift was still with him, albeit that it was altered) and she smiles. “For a little bit. Less of the happy screaming though, please… _before_ I knock you into the dust.” Brienne stiffens her frame and shoves him away, dropping back into her guard. Jaime mirrors her, with the briefest of winks.

There is a pause. Brienne braces herself. And then the seven hells break loose.

Jaime is technically one of the best attacking swordsmen she has ever seen and he doesn’t come at her softly. Age and the lack of construction work on Tarth these days has sapped some of his strength, but he has lost a little of his bulk as a result, meaning that he remains almost impossibly _fast_. She fends off his initial blows clumsily, before she settles into her own rhythm, taking comfort in the fact that she is, defensively at least, almost unmatched.

She feels her blood sing as he tests her reactions to their fullest, using his speed and sheer unpredictability to feel around the edges of her resistance. It goes on for an age. Blow after blow rains down and she absorbs it all, just as she had in a snow covered forest, so long ago.

But some things are ever the same. After a while, she recognises that she is being pushed backwards. She will have to make her move soon. Though not too soon. She can be unpredictable too. A long series of slower, but more complicated thrusts and parries are a sure sign that not only is Jaime starting to tire, but that he is expecting her inevitable counter-attack as well.

_Let him wait._

“We aren’t at the Gates now, Jaime,” Brienne smiles and Jaime narrows his eyes playfully, cautiously dropping back from her as they begin to circle again, both of them short of breath.

They spin through one and a half turns before it is her moment and Brienne throws herself forward, short, sharp movements of her blade now making him retreat. She uses her superior reach and stride like a battering ram, keeping him unbalanced as she presses her advantage. He is quick enough to meet every strike of her sword with his own, though, and Brienne knows that Jaime is completely aware her attack should be relatively brief.

It turns out to be possibly even shorter than she had expected as she sees she is backing Jaime into the corner of the field. She, however, still feels strong enough, whilst he is momentarily distracted by their close proximity to the ropes, to catch the side of his cuirass with a blow she’ll have to apologize for later, turning him about and continuing with her attack.

It doesn’t last very long. Whilst she has come close to overwhelming him, Brienne can feel the sweat streaming down her face and can see Jaime, his body as weary as hers but his mind simply alive, waiting for another moment of his own. It doesn’t take a great deal of time to arrive. She throws out a sliding cut that is mighty, but slightly ill-timed, and his dodge and parry is enough to spin them both until she is on the back foot again.

It is then that their battle really begins. They both have reputations to maintain, after all. Swords fly and clash, but no-one seems to truly grasp the upper hand. All flourishes disappear, for they are both tired, yet neither of them is willing to give up. They sweat and they toil, back and forth, but nobody is winning. Brienne’s arms and legs seem to burn in protest and, looking at Jaime, it is the same for him, even though they are both so happy.

It is Brienne’s own shield, lying forgotten on the ground, that undoes her. Normally so stable in combat, her foot just clips the edge of it and she topples onto her back, which splits the shield as she lands. When the clang that vibrates through her torso fades away, her sword is gone, there is a blade pointed at her throat and a triumphant curl on the lips of the man wielding it.

“Yield!” he roars, for all to hear, but then he steps in and mouths something else at her, his gaze shining bright.

_I told you I was strong enough._

She is tempted to give in. Oh, _how_ she is tempted. But Jaime seems to have forgotten something.

She has more than a sword at her disposal. She whips her mace up and flicks his blade to her right, rolling with the moving weapons as she reaches out with her left foot, hooking her heel around his thigh and bringing him to ground behind her in a spectacular crash of metal.

She is shaking with laughter inside her armour as she rolls onto her back again, pushes away the blade lying flat across her armour and looks at Jaime. He lifts his face from the churned earth beneath him and Brienne has to restrain herself from actually hooting out loud at the sight of his mud-covered features. “Jaime, you shouldn’t have stepped in. You _always_ step in. You _have_ to have the last word.” She holds in another giggle that would affect the image of the Evenstar. “And you have something on your face.”

He hauls himself up onto his elbows and grins at her, speaking so that only she can hear over the noise of the crowd and the ongoing melee. “Wench, I am going to _tear_ that armour from you, later on.”

For the merest second, Brienne’s mind is stopped by a flash of inner heat, her nipples instantly hardening under metal and padding, the panting of exertion turning, just so briefly, into something else entirely. Then she swallows, her throat dry. “I think I had better withdraw from the Melee,” she says quietly.

“You and me both,” Jaime replies, his eyes darkened as she grasps his arm above his golden hand and they pull each other back up to their feet, a raised morning star and tourney sword signalling the end of this particular engagement.

Their next engagement is for them alone, a clash of cuirasses and lips late that very evening, in their own small corridor. Urgent, wanting kisses are deployed as they scrabble at buckles and plate with their fingers, cursing Pod for being so good at securing armour. Metal is thrown and they nearly bruise each other’s mouths, each mighty collision bringing forth moans of pleasure and frustration. By the time Brienne hauls her arming doublet over her own head and leans back next to the hidden doorway, the wood at her back rough against the tracery of her scars, something else has crept in.

Competition. There has always been an edge of competition between them and it is not entirely absent in the bedchamber. Not that they mind. In fact, they quite enjoy the occasional tussle. It gets their juices flowing, as he had once said so inappropriately, given their situation at the time.

His fingers mark her hip as he glares up at her, happy accusation in his eyes. “You didn’t yield. You should’ve. You were grounded.” He leans in so she can feel his words blowing across her neck. “My blade was at your throat.”

She pushes him back and scowls at him. Revelling in her own defiance. “I brought you to ground,too. _Neither_ of us won.”

He smiles at her, his eyes narrowed, a predator, and Brienne would be lying if she said it didn’t send a sharp thrill through her. “You know I’m strong enough,” he says, his voice pitched low.

She lifts her right leg and wraps it about Jaime’s hip, pulling him in until she grinds him against her, making them both gasp in desperation. “ _Prove it,_ ” she challenges him, even as he watches her chest heave.

He drags his gaze up over her skin, catching her eyes and biting his lip. “Oh, I _will_.”

And he does.

It isn’t long before Brienne is tugging the edge of a discarded greave from under her back, grimacing even whilst her pleasure ebbs, her knight kneeling over her with wet fingers and a victorious grin.

“How did that get there?” she asks, looking at the armour incredulously.

He plucks it from her hand and tosses it over his shoulder, ignoring the clang of metal on stone as he brings his face down to hers. “I _told_ you I was strong enough.”

“I _let_ you have me,” she huffs up at him, though her eyes shine. “For pity’s sake.”

He laughs. “We’re never going to work this one out, are we, Brienne?”

Brienne smiles as she wraps her fingers around his hard cock and his breath hisses out through his teeth. “And where would be the fun in that, Jaime?”

/-/-/-/-/

There are times when she craves his strength and he longs for her gentleness. They always muddle through, making shared moments that are strange but fulfilling.

They kneel together, facing one another, though she is almost resting on her haunches, where he is not, and he looks down on her. She has told him that, occasionally, she just likes to be a little shorter. It simply makes her feel more womanly.

Sometimes she grows tired of being the great warrior, the freakishly big and strong machine of war. Sometimes, she just wants to feel what it would be like to be a normal woman, even to be overpowered a little. Sometimes, she wants to be claimed, even to be taken, if only ever by him.

She looks up at him. Placid. Passive. Trusting. He is still not much taller than her, but it doesn’t matter as his fingers shift down her torso, hardly pausing long enough to make her sigh at softly pinched nipples.

Brienne knows that Jaime is well aware of how wet she already is.

At first, just a finger slips between her damp folds, enough to flick and tease the little nub that once only belonged to her (now his, his, his, her minds seems to chant in time with him), before he adjusts his wrist. It is a slightly awkward movement, but it only makes her tighten in warm anticipation. This is his left hand after all, and though it is now well used to the task, it would feel strange to Brienne to experience anything different. He slides his middle finger in, the first slip of the hard skin won by years learning to fight again pulling at her own, hottest skin, making her cry out in her want.

He shows her little gentleness, instead setting a fierce beat. It is what she wants and she doesn’t even have to ask him for it. Her hips begin to rock on him and pleasure is vibrating through her.

But it isn’t enough. She reaches up, running his fingers over his beard, and he drops his face down to hers. She can’t speak, but again she doesn’t have to. The man who was once a lion almost purrs a single word against her lips, his eyes hot. “More?”

She nods, desperately wanting and he slams a second finger into her, alongside the first. She moans as what slight tenderness there was in him falls away. The pace of it is nearly punishing, but so welcome to her.

She reaches out, unseeing, for his cock, failing to find it at all at first. But then her fingers find the length of him, softness and hardness combined.

_I need him inside me so much._

She pushes the wanted, yet unwanted, thought away quickly, concentrating instead on the sensations his hand is gifting to her. He is being near merciless, just as she willed it and her stomach is starting to twitch, the muscles inside her shaking and tightening. The thrill of him is starting to race hot through her blood, when he looks down at her, his eyes possessive. He says one more word, almost a growl as his fingers twist hard and he beckons her over the edge.

_“Mine.”_

She breaks and bliss simply pours through her.

“Yours. Jaime!” she roughly shouts, as her hips dance uncontrollably on him, her body seeking more of the sweet friction that is singing inside her.

High cries begin to fall from her lips, no more words from her at all, but as the storm inside her calms and she falls into stillness, she sees that Jaime is looking down at her, warmly and expectantly.

She smiles back up at him. It is time for her gentleness.

What he needs on this night might be different but strangely, the words are the same. Sometimes the hurt inflicted by his sister still hangs so heavy on him and all he needs is honesty. Simple reassurance. As she starts to move the fingers that still rest on his cock in a slow, steady beat, she reaches up to touch his beard again, her words soft. “I am _yours_ , Jaime. Only for you.”

He sighs in a sort of relief and lowers his head to her shoulder. She can feel his breath, warm and rapid on her skin and his smile against it.

Brienne keeps moving her hand and his hips start to buck a little. But she concentrates much more on telling him quietly that she is his, always his, now using her free arm to reach around to his back, long strokes of her fingers bringing him comfort.

It isn’t long at all until he cries out her name, spilling his seed out over her thigh, as Brienne softly keeps saying one word, over and over. “Yours.” She doesn’t stop saying it until his breathing has slowed and his lips find the side of her neck.

“Thank you, Brienne,” he whispers.

“Thank _you_ ,” she replies with a light blush. “I think you had to work harder.”

He kisses her fondly. “I am yours too, Brienne.” But then his eyes fill with something like regret. “I sometimes wish I could say only, but…”

She shakes her head. “No. Don’t.” She can’t bear to think of him berating himself over what was. It is needless. She accepts his past, and the pain that comes with it, as he freely accepts hers. He wouldn’t be Jaime without it.

But then a thought occurs to her and she smiles. “It doesn’t matter, Jaime. Though I might not quite understand your choice, I can hardly blame you for having been with a woman before.” The upwards tilt of her lips turns sly. “After all, I think you were knighted in the year I was _born_.”

Regret changes instantly to laughter as he tackles her to the mattress, rolling off to one side and clutching his stump to his chest dramatically. “Wench! I know you’ve always said that words are wind, but I fear this wound is mortal!” He furrows his brow for a moment. “Gods, it’s true, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is, Jaime. My old, decrepit Jaime.”

“You can stop that now,” he grimaces at her half-heartedly.

She fails to do so. “I could get you a nice walking stick for your next nameday,” she suggests, grinning. “Something for you to lean on, to take some of the weight from your aging knees.”

“I said stop!” he laughs and Brienne rolls onto her side and presses her lips to the base of his neck, where she can see his pulse beat, making him sigh in contentment.

“Of course,” she says, with pure warmth and gathers him in, holding him close to her.

/-/-/-/-/

Jaime’s fingers caress a hip, covered in the softest blue. “What do you mean, there is more to this?”

“Well, there isn’t that much more,” she whispers nervously.

He grins, slowly, knowingly. “That sounds _better_. I didn’t think it could get better.”

Brienne hangs her head, her face strangled with a state of embarrassment that is now unusual for her. At least with him. He can barely hear her voice as she hesitantly mumbles, “I’ve never worn it, really. You can see right _through_ it.”

He reaches up and brushes his fingers softly over her collarbone. “Even better. Do you mind if _I_ get to see through it?” He nudges her head back up with his own and their noses touch.

“Please?”

She shies away from him and leaves his chamber, clearly a little uncertain, but still comes back, wearing a lot less, yet a little more blue.

He is staggered by her as she returns and stands there in their small doorway, all hunched shoulders and shyness. Soft folds of almost nothing, made of the colour of her eyes, cover her, barely. He can see her scars, her nipples, her build and he is gripped by a gut-twisting sense of lust. There is a roaring in his blood.

_How I want her._

This is Brienne. His nearly wife. The woman who has ridden his fingers and his face, his tongue, countless times, with a sense of abandonment she finds nowhere else and that he loves with all of his heart. He won’t have her thinking that she is ugly or lacking in any feminine grace. Not now and certainly not because of a few lengths of wispy material, that are incidentally making him harder than he has ever been in his whole damned life.

To him, she has more in her than all of those who can claim womanhood put together.

He reaches out to her, pulling insistently on her arm. “Come on, Brienne. Let’s go to bed.”

He makes sure her uncertainty falls away, in fairly short order. Though to be fair, so does she.

Neither of them removes a stitch of her clothing during the night but by morning, it is clear that none of it will ever be fit to be worn outside of these two rooms again.

/-/-/-/-/

In one respect at least, the Gods are kind to them.

It is five years from the moment she utters the words ‘half tankard’ until her moon’s blood runs dry for the very last time. Lolla is thrilled for them, telling her she is lucky that it has happened so _early_ and after six moons she is convinced that the little woman is quite determined to lock Jaime in Brienne’s chamber until the deed is done.

After a painfully embarrassing visit to Maester Arth, who shows nothing but care and concern for her, despite the fact that she stutters and blushes her way through their conversation, Brienne decides to wait. They have come too far and waited too long to risk each other now.

It is _another_ six moons before she allows their shared want to finally overrule her caution.

They must continue to live. But they must actually try fully living. At some time, surely, they must. Years of denial have hurt them, of that there is no doubt. At one time or another, they have both cried in the night in sheer physical need.

_Enough._

It a balmy, summer afternoon when, in a simple tunic and breeches, Brienne makes her way down to Herdmarket. Today, the steps seem to double in number, the journey down from Evenfall Hall somehow feeling almost arduous to her slightly unsteady legs. So she concentrates on the smell of the brine-rich air, trying not to think, letting her feet take her where they have been so many times before. She makes her way into the fort and leans against the rough palings where Jaime is teaching a young, muddle-handed Dothraki woman the intricacies of handling a broadsword.

Brienne enjoys watching him pass on his knowledge. The arrogance of sparring and his youth is stripped away and she has always been astonished by the patience he chooses to employ as he corrects a stance or shifts a grip repeatedly. He can be impatient, yes, but in certain matters he will wait ‘til the world’s end to get what he wants.

 _Including me_ , she thinks, as he notices her, a small twitch of an eyebrow his acknowledgement of her presence. Jaime settles the young warrior woman into a series of clumsily performed drills and walks over towards Brienne, slowing to a stop a few feet away, his gaze curious.

Her words are spare and muted, but certain.

“It is time.”

Jaime’s eyes widen. He swallows convulsively once, twice and his reply is quiet, yet laced with a wavering sense of hope. “Really?”

Brienne simply nods. “Are you ready, Jaime?”

She watches his features as his mind travels back through so many years. To a time of total war. To a broken wall at Castle Black. To the First Dawn.

_This is dawn. Today. For us._

He smiles. “Oh, I’m ready, wench,” he whispers. But then he tilts his head to the side, indicating that he has to finish the tutoring he’s begun. Brienne bobs her head in silent agreement. Others must always come first. It is a weight they have long since struggled with, but bear willingly. For each other.

“I will be with you soon.” His words coil in her, each one spoken with such soft clarity that she stops breathing for a moment, the hitch in her throat obvious to both of them.

_Don’t blush. Don’t._

She glances away for a moment, composing herself, before looking back at him. “And I will be waiting,” Brienne says, warmly, seriously, before turning on her heel and striding away, knowing that Jaime will follow her when he is able.

/-/-/-/-/

The first press of his hips seems achingly slow, time stretching out forever as her flesh yields to him by only the tiniest amount. His weight lifts for the smallest moment, before he moves in again, this time more deeply and Brienne hears a guttural groan that could be coming from either of them. She simply doesn’t know. A strange, distracted lassitude falls over her mind as she notices the sweat breaking out on her upper lip and he thrusts again, a little less gentle now. He is too much. Divine. It is the fourth stroke of him that suddenly, shockingly drives her to the very edge of discomfort, not the sharpness of tearing and bleeding, but the stretch of him inside her entirely new, both unfamiliar and wonderful. Jaime stops, now filling her completely, nearly grinding his teeth as his eyes rain down his concern onto her.

Only then does Brienne realize that her breath is coming in short, broken gasps, that the inside of her right thigh is beating a rapid pattern against his hip without her will. She lifts her hands shakily to his shoulders to almost absently stroke the skin she finds there and she relaxes gently into the bedding beneath her.

She holds his gaze and there is nothing left in the world but green and the feeling of him inside her. “Jaime,” she whispers. And smiles.

He lets out a low sigh and starts to move. Each careful thrust is a revelation, only a handful needed to make her dismiss her initial ache. Though it is still there, a hollow thrum at the end of each deep stroke, it is not strong and the feeling of them finally coming together, all heat and sliding wet flesh after so many years of want, far overpowers it.

It really isn’t long after that before Jaime lets out a strangled cry. “No. No!” Movement turns into stillness and for one horrible moment, Brienne thinks there is something wrong with _her_. But then her fingers show her the truth. Where they remain, resting on his sweat-covered shoulders, Jaime’s muscles are bunching and relaxing in his own quick beat. One that is very familiar to her.

_He is close. So very close._

She lifts her hands to his face, his beard unable to hide the bitingly tense clench of his jaw. “It doesn’t matter, Jaime. Just let go,” she says quietly, surely, raising her head slightly so she can catch his lips with her own, with a gentle pressure that makes a moan reverberate throughout him.

He moves again for a few precious moments, before she captures his cry with her mouth and he falls to her, his weight heavy across her torso even as his hips still slowly beat against her, his breath rushing over her skin. She wraps her arms about him, keeping him close as he shakes in his pleasure.

 _Not a bad start_ , she thinks as she feels him still inside her and as she revels in the sensation of his damp stomach twitching against hers at last.

But then laughter starts to bubble up inside her.

_It was a bit swift._

Jaime grimaces against her skin, his voice muffled. “I’m sorry, wench.”

“Don’t be,” Brienne says fondly, small bursts of mirth escaping her. “After all, you’ve waited so long to ruin me.”

Now he is laughing too as he lifts his head. “I hope to ruin you a little more _thoroughly_ later on.”

“Good,” she replies.

Jaime pecks at her lips and then rises away from her, laying himself to her left, on his side. As his flesh leaves her own, Brienne stops laughing. The unfamiliar stretch of him inside her is flipped into something else that is new. The sensation of absence. It is a curious, unexpected thing, somehow even emptier than years of need had left her, but far less painful. She gasps at it and rests her hand low on her belly, over the place where he has just been.

“Are you hurt?” Jaime’s question is quickly asked. Full of concern. “Have I hurt you?”

She shakes her head and smiles in silence.

“Good,” he grins as his fingers drift over her hip, their destination obvious.

“Stop,” she says. She doesn’t want any more, not right now. She wants to remember what she is feeling in this moment. As it is.

Jaime looks at her, clearly worried, but she just smiles at him again. He rests his lips against her shoulder and looks down over her body, before reaching out to entwine his fingers with hers, on her skin, his little finger just brushing the curls there.

They lie together quietly for some time. Brienne simply feels. The tenderness of her flesh, slightly sore when she squeezes it experimentally. The awareness of the muscles around her hips and thighs having borne his weight in a way that she has never quite known. The combined wetness of them both, making her thighs slick.

Jaime sucks in a sudden, sharp breath, though when she glances his way, there is nothing but warmth in him. “Gods, are you going to tell _Lolla_ about this?”

Her laughter returns to her, free, joyful. “Not if it gets better. It does get better, yes?” she teases.

“What do you think?” he asks tenderly as his lips start to play on her collarbone.

/-/-/-/-/

She wakes in the half-light of early morning and his lips are unmoving on the nape of her neck. Scar tissue rests around her waist, pulling her close, making her warm.

_All is changed, but everything is the same._

He is hard against her; the tip of him nestled at the back of her thighs.

_So close._

The gentle thrumming from so many mornings of denial flickers to life in her. And now it doesn’t matter.

She lets it grow bright and brilliant.

_Some things are different._

His breathing quickens as he starts to wake and a tongue flicks out across her skin, silently heralding the moment when his thoughts begin. She reaches behind her, finding his hip and resting her hand there, her thumb grazing skin stretched over bone. Back and forth.

“Not a maid,” she whispers.

Happy.

“About time.” His voice is low, husky, still clambering it’s way out of the dark pit of sleep.

She rocks back into him slowly and he responds with a quiet chuckle. “That…feels _so good_.”

She just bobs her head against her pillow. It does.

They could play, she supposes. They could do any of the wonderful things they have stumbled upon, over the years and she would scream for him this morning.

But she simply wants to feel him again. Inside.

She is already wet.

She lifts her fingers away from him and slides them between her thighs. She touches him, guiding him into place. He groans behind her. And then they start to move.

Quietly, gently, they join with heat and want. Still so strange to her, still perhaps even a little sore, but nothing of note as she takes him in. But only a few strokes of him see her grasping his hip again, holding him fast, unmoving. It feels odd. Not quite right. She wriggles gingerly in place until she finds that if she arches her back just so, and keeps her legs open but a little, everything is made better.

When they move together again, it is smooth and easy. A drawn breath whistles out of him, cooling the sweat already gathering between her shoulder blades. He sweeps into her, again and again, and for a little while, there is only him and the soft bump of his hips against her.

But then he shifts and speaks, his voice shaking, torn between desire and frustration. “I can’t help you. Wrong arm.”

His stump lifts into the air from her waist, waving slightly, as if in apology. Only then does she realise her hand is now cupping her breast, her fingers tracing lightly over need roughened flesh.

A flush sprints over her and she knows that he must see it, but then his words hit home.

_He can’t help me. Oh. How odd that I hadn’t considered it._

She doesn’t hesitate. There is no need. She may be blushing, but this is, after all, something he has happily watched, his face inches from her. Many times. She moves her hand lower, her other one replacing it over her wanting nipple, and her middle finger creeps through wiry hair, to find her nub. Even the first tiny contact is extraordinary, making her shudder as he fills her again and when she feels the tip of her finger brush against his moving cock, making him moan, she almost shatters right then.

 _He is inside me_.

She holds on, with sheer force of will, as pleasure flows through her, making fire in her blood.

She doesn’t want this to _end_.

For long minutes, there is nothing but harsh breathing to be heard, even though they are coming together in an easy, languorous beat. It is one which is deep and utterly piercing to them both.

He stops, sheathed tightly inside her, his short, sharp gasps a signal of his fight for control over his own body. In these moments of stillness, she slows her finger to a tiny, soft circling of her nub, not wanting to distract him, but not wanting the sensations pouring through her to ebb away.

And then he moves and it begins again.

She feels unlike herself, yet more like herself than she has ever been.

_We are dancing._

But then he is _gone_.

She is left in utter confusion, though only for a heartbeat. Suddenly, she is on her back, her leg flung carelessly over his shoulder. “I want to _see_ you,” he says roughly, his eyes darkened, dragonglass edged in green, as his words swoop through her, igniting her, and he pushes himself back in.

What was languorous and slowly sensual instantly becomes urgent, ungentle, yet no less welcome for it. The weight of his torso is heavy on the back of her thigh, folded back in on her even as his fingers firmly dig into it. He is striking into her now, a barrage of movement and pressure, a wailing song and she lifts her hands away from her own body, to hold his hips, to feel them. To drive him into her. As she has dreamed of doing for so long.

It is visceral. They are stripped down to nothing but bare flesh, blood, bone and need.

She is so close.

Still clasping one dear, beautiful hip she reaches down between them. He is watching her and she hardly has to touch herself before everything is gone, only leaving them and his name, torn from her lips.

_“Jaime.”_

He follows her in mere moments.

 _“Brienne,”_ he whispers, before he roars out his release and she watches him, awash in a sea of her own pleasure as a moment of pure and almost hurtful tension in his body, which seems to want to twist his limbs and try his muscles to their very limits, falls away.

He shakes against her and she waits, giving him time before she pushes him up weakly, with her thigh. She is shaking, too.

There is laughter as she has to almost peel her leg away from him, their shared sweat almost having stuck them together.

She pulls him down to her and they both moan as his flesh leaves hers.

Too soon.

_Too soon._

Then they lie in the brightening light of morning, both of them long since shattered and broken by so much, but now remade.

He lifts his face, kissing her the corner of her mouth. “Better?”

She blushes again.

_Again._

But then she finds his lips with her own and both sets are dry, but it doesn’t matter. “Much better,” she says softly.

They lie together, waiting for the first of the sun’s rays to greet them.

/-/-/-/-/

Limbs twine and flex in heat. In passion.

Torsos collide and are sculpted to one another by need.

They make themselves one.

Sometimes, it is near silent and so gentle. Soft touches and longing gazes leading to slow, deep thrusts and achingly caring caresses that leave them both suffused with warmth; glowing as a quiet, shared laughter finally rings into the small space in the world that is theirs alone. There are other times though, others that leave them gasping, desperate for air, with blood red crescents made by short fingernails etched deeply into their skin. Times when the noises they make are barely those of man, when hair is pulled, flesh is bitten and bruises flourish under the cover of night.

The manner of it doesn’t matter. Either way, their cries echo into the darkness, one name inevitably dragging another along with it.

Pleasure is made.

Yet still they want.

/-/-/-/-/

It is bathtime and Jaime is a little late. A young, arrogant lordling required a short, sharp lesson in humility in the practice yards of Herdmarket, which he’d been more than happy to supply, though it almost kept him from the best part of the evening. On most days, Brienne will bathe. And they have ever liked baths.

His chest already bare, he pulls at the laces of his breeches as he pushes open the wooden panel to her chamber and leans against the side of the hidden doorway. He lets his gaze soak her in. Her hair is slicked back over her head and her eyes are closed as she half-dozes in the water. This is Brienne at her most relaxed, at peace with everything despite the fact that she can hardly be comfortable. For some unknown reason, the maker of her little bath had chosen to make both ends of it a little higher than the sides. This serves her head well, he notes as it lolls backwards and she lets out a contented sigh, but it means her legs, as always unable to join her in the tub, dangle over the sides. His eyes roam over her freely and he smiles. It may not be the most ladylike of positions, all things considered, but it doesn’t mean he can’t appreciate it.

“There’s my favourite view,” he says softly, padding over to the side of the tub.

Brienne barely moves at all, a small smile flitting across her lips as her eyes open lazily. “I didn’t think you were coming.”

“I wouldn’t miss it, unless it was unavoidable. You know that.” He briefly stretches his arms out with a low grunt. “Our most noble Lord Plumm was living up to the family motto. All that youthful bravado.” He grins. “I left him in the dust.”

Her brow crumples and she frowns. “I worry about that one, Jaime. I’m not sure we should have accepted him.”

“He has the basic skills, Brienne.”

“I know. But…”

“He is a ghastly pig of a young man, isn’t he?” Jaime doesn’t like that she is thinking about these things now, not when she should be resting. He leans over a little and strokes his fingers along her jawline as he reassures her. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on him.”

Brienne turns her face into his palm, kissing it. “Thank you.” But then she wrinkles her nose, wrapping her fingers around his wrist and sniffing at it. “You really need a new arming doublet, Jaime,” she smiles at him. “Yours is getting a bit ripe.” She pulls her legs in and rises to her feet in the tub.

He just shrugs and watches the bathwater stream down over her skin, following the paths that the water finds over the impossible length of her. Flat sheets of water turn into droplets and his eyes move with them, over muscle, slight curves and skin. He has always enjoyed watching her in water. For too many years to count.

“Jaime?” Brienne says, breaking him out of his reverie.

“Hmm?”

“I said the water still has some warmth in it. If you want to use it.”

He nods and pulls down his breeches, stepping out of them. Brienne’s feet slap wetly on the floor as she makes her way over to the fire and he takes her place in the bath, though he sits with his back to the opposite end she chose so that he can see her. The water is barely lukewarm, so he will not linger. “How went today’s tour of Tarth?” he asks as he starts to scrub at his skin.

Brienne snorts, lifting the small comb she keeps atop the fireplace and running it through the ends of her hair. “A bit dull. Ow!” she adds as she seems to hit a knot. Jaime chuckles and Brienne frowns at him. “I don’t know how you manage it,” she grumbles. “Your hair is longer than mine and it _never_ tangles.”

“Well, I _am_ extraordinary,” he replies with a wink and she smiles. They fall into silence for a few minutes, with only the occasional yip from Brienne as her comb hits a difficult patch. Jaime finishes washing and sits in the now cool water, looking at her. He can’t believe he ever found her ugly. She isn’t beautiful, not as others would have it and he knows it. But her limbs are so long and she is toned and strong. He always finds charm in her face these days, even when she grimaces in discomfort at a stubbornly knotted section of hair behind her right ear. The effect of her screwing her eyes shut and her jaw working furiously would be hideous, or worse, perhaps even comical to most, but he is blind to that now. He only sees Brienne and he is more than pleased, in fact honoured and eager, to be the man who gets to do so as the warm firelight flickers over her, making her many freckles darker on her skin.

When her trial by comb appears to come to an end, Jaime lifts himself out of the tiny bath and makes his way to her, plucking the small torture device from her fingers and putting it back in its customary place.

For a time, they just stand there, simply looking at one another. Jaime’s gaze naturally meanders down to her legs and he smiles at the orange, flickering glow suffusing her skin. “You look good in firelight, my lady.” A short, mildly offended huff from Brienne draws his eyes back up, but he softly continues. “It reminds me of the first dawn.”

The stern cast of her face gentles. “With less screaming,” she offers.

“Oh, I don’t know. I always thought it was more of a roaring,” Jaime suggests, lifting his hand and resting it in the shallow valley between her small breasts, feeling the thud of her heartbeat begin to quicken at this lightest of touches. “But I could make you scream, if you like. For nostalgia’s sake, you understand.”

“Of course,” she says warmly. Brienne lifts her own left hand and bites her lip as she reaches out, a single finger touching the small droplet of liquid already leaking from his cock, spreading it over the tip in lazy circles. Jaime shudders at the feel of it and groans even as she laughs softly.

“Brienne,” he whispers, almost a plea, but then he steps away. “Don’t move.” He steps over to the bed and tugs at the blankets, bringing them back with him. “Stone floor,” he mutters by way of explanation and they spread the bedclothes out in front of the fire together.

They seem to pull each other down to the ground, lying side by side and falling into kissing in moments, the tips of tongues languorously duelling as they slowly grind their hips together. Every easy rub of his cock against her makes them moan into each other’s mouths. He reaches between them, brushing his hand across her breasts, the rosy little tips standing to attention, delicately rough under his fingertips. She does the same to him and the rhythm of their hips increases, the sensations becoming blinding.

Jaime starts to move his hand lower on her body, intending to dip his fingers into her wetness, to work in her, when he finds himself suddenly on his back. In a mere moment, Brienne straddles him, her sword hand grasping his cock so she can impale herself on it quickly, fully.

 _To the hilt_ , he thinks before all thought flies from his head.

Then she stops, filled with him and they just gaze at each other, nothing but relief and sheer bliss on their faces as short, desperate gasps escape them.

For Jaime, the world is gone. There is nothing left but Brienne. She is silk. She is steel. She is wet heat, clasping him.

He drowns in blue and his hips try to buck upwards, burying him more deeply inside of her. They both sigh. Jaime’s body, without his will but not against it, keeps uselessly rocking into her, craving friction until she finally begins to move.

At first, she is infinitesimally slow about it, each roll of her hips consuming him with an almost shy delicacy. It alters as she begins to twist her body with every downward thrust, as if the flexing of an arm or a shoulder can somehow still touch the skin of him as he is engulfed by her.

Jaime glances down and sees that her thighs are glistening with wetness and it fills him with a primal sense of possession. Even though, perhaps, he is the one currently being possessed. It doesn’t matter. It never would. They are simply so beautiful as their bodies join, again and again.

He reaches for her hair, pulling her down to him nearly ungently, words falling roughly from his lips. “ _Look_. Look at _us_.” Brienne tips her head down next to his, though her hips don’t slow. Jaime hears a small gasp of pleasure escape her as they both watch the slide of his cock, in and out of her. Sharing the view.

After a little while, filled with soft murmurings of nothing and everything, Brienne pulls herself upright again and then, in an instant, drops herself down hard onto him, only to stop herself moving once more. Jaime almost cries out in protest. But then she clenches him, her beloved cunt nearly hurting his flesh. He finds his fingers scrabbling at the blankets beneath him.

He lifts his former sword hand towards her, wanting to touch her so much, only to flinch as he remembers it isn’t there. He still forgets sometimes. _Still_. It doesn’t matter though, because even as he starts to pull it away in frustration, long fingers wrap around it and bring it to rest against her waist. Unmoving above him, Brienne cradles his crippled arm with absolute care before she lifts it, leaning forward and brushing it over her skin. Her stomach. Her arms. Her neck. Her breasts. Her lips. She holds it to her like something precious as she again starts to rise and fall above him, now faster, needing their want to be gone as surely as he does.

From this point, it doesn’t take long. She is beginning to twitch and flicker inside, her breath short beneath her ribs when he finds his end, the warmth of her overwhelming. As he starts to come undone, Brienne reaches behind her, her free hand playing with his balls and his pleasure intensifies, shrieking through him. He lets go with a roar. His own name comes forth from her less than a handful of thrusts later, loud and insistent, her back arching, her body thrumming around him.

Brienne collapses onto his shoulder, and he just listens for long minutes as her breathing changes from something quick, ecstatic and frantic, back into her more measured self.

She is the first to speak, her words light with happiness. “I thought you were going to make _me_ scream?” She lifts her head wearily and nudges his nose with hers. “For nostalgia’s sake.”

Jaime laughs, long and low. “It’s not my fault you decided to be so bouncy.”

Blue eyes catch his with a vast and entirely fake sort of outrage. _“Bouncy?”_

He grins. “Oh, yes. Bouncy. I hear you bounced heroically once. A tragic tale. It brought great shame upon all of us heroic flouncers, you know.”

“I’m sure there is a song about it,” Brienne says seriously and kisses him.

For a little while they laugh and touch and trade ridiculous insults, but when the fire lows, only embers left glowing in the grate, Brienne suggests that they move to the bed.

“I’m quite comfortable here, wench,” Jaime says.

“That might be so, old man,” Brienne smiles, “but your hips and my knees will thank us for the gesture later.”

They help each other up, chuckling softly when they realize that they are both a little unsteady on their feet, dragging the blankets with them as they climb onto the bed, tottering like new-born foals. They cover themselves and entwine, with their limbs finding their natural resting places against the skin of another.

Jaime groans in comfort as his body relaxes into a mass of feathers and his stump folds in between their stomachs. “You know, your plan of heading off to bed might not have been the sure sign of madness I thought it was,” he whispers.

Brienne gives him one last, sleepy kiss. “I know. My dearest idiot.”

/-/-/-/-/

There is much to be said for pleasure, but now that she truly knows it, Brienne finds that it had been there for so many years anyway.

Yes, when their bodies glide against one another, when they take each other in the night, it is wonderful. She loves nothing more than hearing her own name tumble roughly from Jaime’s lips as he spills himself inside her.

But there is wonder in so much else.

They never stop sleeping in a tangle of long limbs, but just waking to the feel of his fingers on her skin is a joy that has existed for far, far longer than they have chosen to be together. In the way they are now, at least.

There are countless, soft kisses that lead to nothing but restful sleep.

Simply holding each other in the night, when old wounds hurt and aging bones ache unmercifully.

The inevitable tangling of feet as they sit in front of the fire, just talking.

The freedom to cry, to fear, to lust and desire without restraint.

Being accepted.

Brienne cannot think of any way in which she could be happier. What they have may be limited to this small space, but it doesn’t matter. She has found more than she had ever dared wished for in the very chambers that had seen her hopes of joy extinguished when she was growing into the ugly, cumbersome young woman who found she could not be the fair maiden from the stories of old that she longed to be and lifted the sword instead.

She has long since found contentment. With Jaime.

And in these two rooms, they are entirely free to enjoy it.

Almost.

/-/-/-/-/

“ _Never_ do that again,” she grinds out, her eyes blazing and her fingers clasped firmly to the table’s edges, even as she begins to shudder her release against him. She throws her head back suddenly, a silent scream being offered up into the air above her from her kiss swollen lips.

It tips him over into oblivion and a few sharp, deep thrusts later he finds his head pushed hard against her shoulder as his own pleasure rips through him. It is sweet and furious. He lets out a guttural moan.

_Gods, how I have missed you, Wench._

Slowly, he lifts his gaze to hers and he can see she is still angry. That seems reasonable. So is he.

He bites out his reply as best he can, though his chest is heaving. “My love, only… _you_ would berate a man for an innocent public…embrace… when he’s _fucking_ you.”

 _“What?”_ she spits out, he thinks in shock.

“I’m sorry, Brienne,” he says, shaking his head at his own crudeness. This is _not_ how this reunion was supposed to go. He has longed for her for the better part of a year. “But you were in Essos for an age and I didn’t think it would matter. Every other bloody blue cloak on the dock had...”

“Jaime. _Stop._ ” He does and looks at her, confused. There is an edge of near panic in her voice that just for once, he can’t seem to grasp even as she continues. “Jaime, you called me your love.” She pauses and his mind scrambles for insight. “We have never spoken of love. Not between _us_.”

_What?_

He can’t think. He blanches away from her words. Their meaning is so heavy and he simply cannot deal with them in this moment. So he does what he always does. He speaks. “That seems a bit remiss of us, given our current position.” He inwardly curses his own tongue even as the dry phrases fall from his lips and Brienne slides the focus of her gaze away and down into the space beside him.

“I don’t think this is a time to jest, Jaime,” she says, her voice low and serious. _Hurt._

She pushes him away at the hips as she rises to her feet and he slips out of her, making them both draw in a sharp breath. They still hate it when they part. Even now, apparently. Brienne won’t look at him, though. She simply sidesteps around him and gingerly picks her way across the room, taking a position next to the bed that can only be regarded as defensive. She appears almost ready to spar, her knees slightly bent, her balance perfect and her shoulders square. Yet she is staring at the floor, as if to burn a hole through it with the blue of her eyes.

It is that lowered, sad gaze that triggers an avalanche of anger that pours through Jaime. Not at _her_. Never at her. At their situation. At their Queen. At himself. He, as an adult, may have suffered many years of scorn, but they weren’t loveless. Brienne’s have been. Her whole life has seen her judged before she is known. Little wonder she looks scared. She only ever expects rejection and Jaime is blindly furious at himself, for using her so ill.

_How could I have not told her?_

“You’re right, Brienne. Of course you are.” His voice sounds rough, even to his own ears. He shakes himself into movement, pulling one foot out of the breeches that still rest around his ankles and stamping on the dark material to remove the other which gets caught, feeling blastedly clumsy in the weighted silence. He kicks them away and raises his head. She hasn’t moved. She is still wary. He carefully makes his own way to her, through hastily discarded pieces of blue plate armour and scattered clothing. When he reaches her, he lifts his hand towards hers with a confidence he doesn’t actually feel, though he speaks with complete honesty. Softly. “Come to bed, wench, and let us talk of love.”

She wraps her fingers about his, tentatively but trustingly. Then they climb onto the bed together, unfamiliarly awkwardly, and end up lying naked, side by side.

In total silence.

/-/-/-/-/

She can’t find words and the fingers resting against hers, between them, are actually shaking.

Brienne glances at him, but looks away again as his eyes seem to move in her direction. She doesn’t know what to say. She breathes deeply, thinking of him.

_Jaime._

Moments fly through her mind. The self-deprecating tone of a confession in a bathtub, when he expected nothing but her disbelief in return. The sound of his boots, landing in the mud of a bear pit, convincing her, for the barest split-second, of the madness of wishful thinking before she realised he was really, truly there. Some of his more colourful insults, as he worked so hard to relearn his skills. The sympathy and concern on his face and the apology on his lips as he pulled the hastily cut shaft of an arrow through and from a wound in her thigh. A sword in a tower. A horse in a stable. The feel of his back against hers, as they fought together in the darkest of nights. Waking to a dancing sky, but seeing only him.

Yes, she loves Jaime and she knows he loves her. Yet how can she expect him to speak first? Not only has he been distrusted, even hated, for much of his whole life, but the one person he had entrusted himself to entirely hurt him so _badly_.

One more deep breath and she speaks, though she cannot look at him again just yet. “I’ve loved you for years, Jaime. I don’t know when it really started, but it…it didn’t take long.” She blushes as she almost stutters to a stop. She has always known that she loved him first.

He begins by mirroring her words with utter sincerity. “I have loved you for years, Brienne. Certainly for all of my latest stint as your prisoner and for much, much longer than that, I think.” He turns onto his side, catching her attention, facing her as an all too familiar smile starts to tease at his lips. “In fact, I do believe my cock was half in love with you, way back in Harrenhal. Though the rest of me was just rather confused.”

Brienne ensures that a small blue cushion covered in tiny silver goats collides with the side of his head moderately hard, replying with a sudden grin. “I do remember thinking you looked half a God, back then. But also half a corpse. And all of an idiot.”

“Of course,” he says mildly. “Do I get to hit you with a cushion now?”

“No.”

The moment of levity is short-lived. Their smiles fall away and the air thickens about them with a suffocating regret. “Why have we _done_ this to ourselves?” Jaime asks, his voice simply saddened.

For her part, Brienne feels like it is something she’s always known, though clearly it can’t be so. “The more I felt, the more I had to hide it. I want you to _live_.”

He reaches out, his stump coming to rest on her stomach. “We weren’t forbidden to love,” he says quietly.

“No, but the _fear_ of it was our real punishment, I think.”

Green eyes flash with an anger she can see he is aiming squarely at himself. “ _My_ punishment, Brienne, not yours. You didn’t have to…”

She stills his mouth with a kiss and a softly uttered phrase. “We don’t get to choose who we love.”

He nearly smiles at his own words being used against him, but then his misplaced anger returns, though his words are soft. “Without me, you could’ve married, Brienne. Had children. You would have been the best mother.”

Brienne’s heart aches for him as his aches for her. Then she shakes her head. “Not without you, Jaime. Never. Whenever I’ve thought about them,” she feels her forehead, ugly, large, folding into bitter wrinkles, “and I would be lying if I said I hadn’t, they were always these enormous, beautiful children with troublesome mouths, unfortunate freckles and green eyes.” It is only when she stops that the warm burn of tears forming makes itself felt.

Jaime sniffs, his own gaze wide and glassy. “Strange. In my head they were stubborn, had hair like straw, but their eyes were always stunningly blue. And I was almost smothered by all of their kindness.” His jaw twitches and his voice drops into true sadness. “I named them, Brienne. I _named_ them.”

Brienne nods, her reply unneeded. Jaime knows.

_I did too._

He presses his lips to her ruined cheek and his first, softly spoken name shreds her heart. “Galladon.”

Her tears begin to flow and she strokes the side of his neck. “Joanna,” she offers him, so solemnly.

The muscles under her fingers clench. “Selwyn,” he squeezes out, his face growing wet.

A ball of grief tightens in her chest, though she tries to smile. “Tyrion.”

A weak laugh escapes him as he cries. He gathers her close, muttering unsteadily into her ear,

“And who can forget little Lolla?”

She whimpers against him. “Of course. _Lolla._ ”

For a while, they hold each other, so tightly that skin is almost bruised, as they weep.

As they mourn.

As they long for the lives they could have, and perhaps, should have had.

As they grieve for the pale shadows of beloved children who could never and will never exist.

As their pain flows out of them, leaving the pillows under their faces wet and rough, but leaving something stronger behind.

Themselves.

Their tears slow and the emptiness of what could have been fades somewhat. They lie on the bed exhausted, like survivors of a shipwreck on driftwood.

“I’m _not_ sorry,” she whispers into his hair.

“Are you sure?”

She moves away from him a little, catching his gaze as if in amber, every one of her following words simply true. “I have loved you for half of my life, Jaime. And I would give you the other half too, if I were able.”

He looks at her with a tired something that is somehow akin to brilliant wonder. “How is it that you even _exist_?” he asks, pressing his lips to the many times broken bridge of her nose. “I couldn’t love you more, Brienne. It just isn’t possible.”

He drags the soft arc of his mouth around her face, bestowing tiny little pecks as he goes, until they end up kissing for long minutes, almost chastely, and the sweetness of it is almost unbearable.

It soothes her, easing her pain, and she knows that is why he is doing it.

 _I love him so much_.

For forever and for no time at all, they take comfort from one another. Skin brushing over skin seems to sweep their hurt out of them, into the air surrounding them, until it dissipates and becomes small, freeing them to replace what they don’t have with everything that they do.

Anger and grief become acceptance and happiness.

In total silence.

But then Jaime pulls away and slumps onto his back, a new brightness shining in his eyes, and lifts his arms into the air, gesturing oddly.

She watches him for a few moments. “What are you doing?” Brienne is unable to make neither heads nor tails of it.

“Can’t you see?” he replies, roughly, conspiratorially. “I’m writing a letter to the Queen.”

Brienne tucks her head against his shoulder, uncertain as to how his stump would be able to write on paper made of paper, let alone fingers, but appreciating his attempt to bring her some measure of cheer. “What does it say?” she asks lightly, albeit that her face is puffy and her eyes feel as if they are filled with nothing but weariness and sand. She is happy to play along.

Jaime winks at her from red-rimmed eyes and she smiles.

“Your Grace,” he says, full of unnecessary pomp, “I should update you on the progress of my ongoing banishment. I can’t stand being stuck in the nicest place I’ve ever happened upon. Working with a sword every day is just awful, because I despise weapons. It is widely known. I heard it in a song. And though we had to wait a while, getting to repeatedly fuck my nearly wife, the woman I love more than anybody else in the world, is just bloody tireso...”

 _“Jaime!”_ Brienne gasps, nearly vaulting up to straddle him, the inside of her thighs sticky against the outside of his. “You _wouldn’t_.” The very moment she says it, she feels wildly stupid. _Of course he wouldn’t_. And she starts laughing.

“Well,” Jaime replies, as if offended, “I _can’t_ tell her the truth. I don’t want her to _unbanish_ me, do I? Do you?”

She slaps her right hand over her mouth, shaking her head as she calms herself. “No, Jaime. I..,” she pauses, her next word still so unfamiliar on her own tongue, “love so much about you. There are so many parts of you to love.”

He narrows his eyes and his hand drifts over his body. “Hmm. I do wonder. What _part_ of me do you love best?”

That isn’t quite what she had meant, yet unbidden, her gaze flicks downwards. “I love your-“

“Really?” he interrupts sharply, grinning.

“Your _hips,_ Jaime,” she chides. “I was going to say your hips.” Red creeps across her skin once more as she lets an old truth out. “I used to think of holding them. A lot. And they just feel right in my hands. You?” She sucks in a sharp breath at the fact that she has even dared to ask, but Jaime’s answer is immediate.

“I love your waist.”

Brienne rocks back. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she mutters, wanting to believe him but suddenly unhappy again as the old doubts rush back in. She knows she hardly even has a waist.

_Please don’t mock my body, Jaime. Not now. I couldn’t bear it._

He sees her sadness, her lingering fears, and reaches out with his hand, his fingers splaying, spreading over her stomach, moving up over her hip, leaving renewed warmth and fire in their wake. His voice is almost a song. “Brienne. Listen to me. This is the waist that saved my lone hand in the frozen North. This is the waist I held for countless nights, staying desperately still whilst I only wanted to stroke soft, freckled skin. This is the waist that gave me warmth, when mine was gone. This is the waist that _saved_ me.”

“You’re exaggerating,” she whispers, though now she is sure he means it.

He just looks up at her defiantly. “Really? And just how many swords do you think I could’ve held with no hands at all?”

She lets herself finally, truly believe him and leans down to stare into his eyes, her gaze serious, even if her words are not. “You could have just talked to the monsters of the North until they gave up and left. I know _I_ nearly did.”

He reaches up, grasping her hair ungently and tugs her face even lower, until their noses touch and they both smile.

“ _Lying wench_ ,” he whispers. “I _love_ you.”

The world seems to stop.

Everything is laid bare now and despite that, it is all still here.

Pain. Laughter. Fear. Want. Ugliness. Beauty. Screaming. Crying. Whispering. Giving. Taking. Dark. Blood. Light. Minds. Skin. Strikes. Caresses. Tears. Pleasure. Grief. Conflict. Need.

_Love._

They look at each other and then they laugh freely at their own longstanding stupidity.

They pause.

They touch foreheads and both of them are gently biting their own bottom lips.

And then.

_Then._

They kiss and spring back. Then they kiss again. And again. They kiss over and over, and it is a joyful thing; until their lips are swollen and almost too sore at the newfound sharing of a love that has stalked them both, so bitterly, so strangely, so wonderfully and for so long.

/-/-/-/-/

It is later and darker.

He kisses her gently as he slides in and out of her, as her body grasps his own so firmly, surely, and as he tangles his fingers in her hair. He so desperately wants her to feel as he does.

And then, in a single meaningless thrust, as he only begins to drive into her with a force he needs and one he knows she craves, when all he can see is the tilt of her jaw, thrown backwards, and her neck taut as she becomes lost in her own hunger, he realises that he doesn’t have to want anymore.

 _We feel the same way_.

So they move together, faster and faster, ungentle yet loving, all nipping of lips, firm stroking of slick skin and then fingers gripping tightly, almost bruisingly, as they urge each other on.

He is _burning_ for her.

And she has never needed to say anything other than his own name to make him unravel. To make him lose control. She does it now. Yet it is different.

“My Jaime.”

“ _My love_.”

He tightens as she does, as he feels the increasing waves of movement in her flesh, in her body.

So deep inside of her.

_She finds pleasure in merely saying it._

“ _Jaime,_ ” he hears her moan, one last, glorious time, as her thighs clasp him, twitching against his sweat-soaked hips, and as her calves bind him, holding him in.

He buckles and he pours himself into her as he cries.

 _“My love_ ,” he whispers into her hair, gasping as he dampens it with his tears.

An unwomanly hand, coarse and large, sweeps up over his cheek. Unwomanly, but so very womanly in the very moment she turns her head to look at him and blue eyes own him at last.

At last.

_"Gods, my Brienne.”_

He is praying for her, once more.

/-/-/-/-/

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is another one of those stopping places of which I previously made note. If you really like your J/B fic reading experiences to end on a decidedly...erm, naked note, then this is the last chapter for you. It isn't that there won't be any more, but this is the end of the part of this story that deals most markedly with intimate matters. If this is your chosen point of departure, I thank you for reading. Have a biscuit.
> 
> The next chapter will be called 'The Days of Knights'.


	13. The Days of Knights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The war is over. Some of them hadn’t thought that they would outlive it. And yet...
> 
>   
> Banner by [Ro Nordmann](http://ro-little-shop-of-wonders.tumblr.com)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My profound thanks to Roseheart and to Nurdles, without whom this chapter would have been impossible.
> 
> And I thank you all for your patience and support. Biscuits everywhere.
> 
> Disclaimer: no owning is occurring.

CHAPTER TWELVE: THE DAYS OF KNIGHTS

Brienne coughs as she crouches in her armour, the dust of battle heavy in her lungs, her gauntleted fingers flexing, forming furrows in the dry, red dirt beneath her. She lifts her left hand and twists her helm away; gasping for air, but there is just as little to be found without her metal as within it. She casts her gaze about her as she rises back up to her feet, unable to resist the temptation to push the bloodied point of her priceless sword into the hard, infertile earth, leaning on the hilt as she hauls herself upright.

The second battle for control of Meereen has been won in the name of the Dragon Queen, years after the first. There are only a couple of isolated pockets of violence left in the field and they will soon be ended. She looks at the bodies of those lying about her and tries to resist the bile that threatens to rise in her throat.

Many of the men opposing them had been slaves. Against her small army, they had been but weak meat under the force of their blades. So desperate had the old slaving families been to fully grasp their tentatively regained power in the city, they had thrown everything they had at the Dragon Warriors and their allied forces. To no avail. Some of the slain are mere boys, driven by fear of their owners to reject her offer of amnesty and fight.

_So much blood. So much youth and promise. Wasted._

It is a terrible victory.

She turns to her left and the blood-spattered, silvery form lain flat on the ground there. She reaches downwards. “Come on up, Pod.”

“No. Leave me here, my Lady Evenstar. I’m sure I’m dying.” Despite all that has happened today and the stink of true death that surrounds them, Brienne can’t help but almost laugh as her dear boy rips his own helm off and drops it to one side, struggling to breathe. “Seven fucking hells, it’s just as bad out here,” he gasps, grinning up at her from the dust. “I don’t know about you, Ser Lady, but I miss _winter_.”

“I miss when you didn’t curse so much,” she mildly offers as he clasps her hand and she pulls him up, moaning all the way as his armour creaks. His face is bright red and Brienne can only think that her own features must be livid in this unforgiving heat.

The sound of hoofbeats sees them both spinning about, the sweat slicking their hair to heads forgotten as they raise their swords. They hold their guard for but a moment, swordtips falling back towards the ground when they see who is coming. Then they retrieve their helms and pick their way through the grim, twisted carpet of bodies in the direction of the approaching horse.

As they draw close, Pod snorts. “Look at him, in all his magnificence,” he mutters dryly.

Brienne squints up at the rider, cast into shadow as he is by the blazing sun. He looks like the Warrior, made flesh. It is ridiculous. “I don’t think he’s even _sweating,”_ she says, her tone coloured by no small measure of disbelief.

“It makes me sick,” Pod replies, with a smile.

Ser Kholo of Tarth chuckles as he reins his horse in. He passes down a waterskin and Brienne uncaps it, drinking thirstily before passing it on to Pod. “The Ambassador has arrived, inavva,” he says. He jerks his head towards the city gates, a half a league or so off, and Brienne can see the black and red standards of House Targaryen hanging limp in the still, heated air.

“Just in time to miss the battle,” Pod says, wiping his chin. “I hear he’s old.”

Kholo confirms this with a short nod, but Brienne must caution them. “That as may be, but his killing days are not over yet. He gutted three men who tried to assassinate him just a moon before we arrived. He only had a dagger to hand. You would be wise not to underestimate him.” She removes a gauntlet, tucks it into her helm and steps in to stroke the muzzle of Kholo’s mount. It’s eyes are somewhat wild, the madness of battle still unsettling it a little.

“Really?” asks Pod. She simply nods as she continues to calm the fretting horse.

Kholo smiles down at her fondly. “I thought I was Master of Horse?” She doesn’t answer, just stroking the soft nose one last time, before stepping away so they can make their way to the waiting party.

“Injuries? Deaths?” she asks Kholo.

“Few deaths on our side. I do not know of the injuries.”

“Are the slavers confined?” she says as they trudge along.

Kholo nods. “In one of their own pyramids,” he replies, with a dark grin.

“Good,” she says. Given what she has seen, she would be half-inclined to seal them up in it. Rampant injustice has tended made her feel a little brutal, as she has grown older. _Perhaps that’s why I’m not the diplomat today._ “Are we expected to attend the talks?”

“Yes.”

She grunts unhappily. “Is Ser Batherjee uninjured?”

The two men laugh, loud and long. Ser Batherjee had travelled to Tarth from beyond the Bone Mountains, or perhaps in them. Nobody had ever really cared to ask him for the precise details, given his prodigious height and strength. He is at least a hand span taller and wider than Brienne.

“I have already sent for him.”

“Thank you, Kholo,” she says wearily.

_It never hurts to be as intimidating as possible, in negotiations._

But then she smiles. “I suppose you will both be celebrating in your normal fashion, this evening?” She can almost feel Kholo’s gaze swing in time with hers, to Pod, who turns an even brighter shade of red. In spite of his almost legendary status, Ser Podrick Payne of the House of Tarth still finds talking about women in front of _her_ excruciating. Perhaps it is cruel to tease him so, but Brienne just likes to be the one who isn’t embarrassed, for a change.

The Dothraki had brought something other than the finest horsecraft and the arakh to Tarth. Back in the Riverlands, the night after their first true battle had been a supreme shock to Brienne. She had needed to confirm their loss of horse with Kholo and found herself dodging her way, her own skin roaring with blood, through various lewd scenarios, only to find the knight himself happily _…involved_ with two young women, one a camp follower and the other a knight. She hadn’t known where to put her eyes as the three had dived under a nearby blanket which barely covered them. Once they had spoken about the animals, with Brienne all the while finding a tent peg extremely interesting, she had made a statement, simply and firmly, about what she clearly couldn’t stop. “Only those who consent.”

This became the rule, and it held. And in truth, it didn’t actually harm the Dragon Warriors to have a reputation for certain appetites, even if Brienne herself was outwardly denied indulging in them. It worked particularly well in Westeros, where a general fear of the gathering of the voracious warriors of Tarth had already averted two wars between minor Houses.

Brienne just watches Pod as he looks anywhere but at her. She glances up at Kholo. “I think that’s a yes.” But then she sighs, her mind half a world away.

“You miss him,” Kholo quietly says, startling her.

“Every day,” she replies. These are the only words they have ever exchanged about her relationship with Jaime.

“Inavva,” the Master of Horse smiles. “This war is done. You will be home soon.”

She groans. “Not for _moons_.” It is her turn to grow redder as she realizes she has vocalized her own frustration in front of others for the first time.  Although she winces in sure expectation, her two closest comrades-in-arms, in these days at least, for once decide not to push the conversation further, only low chuckles meeting her admission.

_It would seem they really are knightly, after all. However they choose to spend this evening._

They become silent, the tiredness of uneven, unfair battle heavy on each of them. The last of the combat is now done, the plain now redder than before, with only the cries of the wounded to be heard as the Maesters begin to find their way to anybody who can be helped.

Brienne is sombre. The war is won, but she will not be remembered well in Essos. Many are freed, but almost as many have perished and she has not just ended people. She has crushed a city. She is well aware that the Ambassador is not really here to negotiate terms. The orders of the Queen were quite clear. Meereen is to be destroyed, its people dispersed, the very city itself due to be turned to ashes a mere fortnight from now, when the Mother of Dragons will herself fly her children to this place, razing it to bedrock. Anything that remains will be rendered uninhabitable.

They approach the waiting group. The Ambassador is not hard to discern from the party and he slides from his horse with ease considering his age, his boots kicking up a small cloud of dust as he lands.

He walks forward to greet them and stops a few feet away. He and Brienne regard each other with wry smiles.

_He is maimed too. And his journey has perhaps been even stranger than my own._

From knight to slaver, to royal advisor, to slave, to Ambassador.

“You must be the Evenstar,” he says, his voice low and smooth, his eyes kind.

“Ambassador Mormont,” she nods.

“What do I need to know?”

_Straight to the point. Good. I think I’m going to like him._

“Only the Houses of Galare and Kandaq remain loyal.”

“Not the House of Reznak?” he asks, clearly curious. “Reznak mo Reznak was an advisor to the Queen for some considerable time.”

“The loyalties of the House of Reznak change with the weather, I think.”

“I see.” The old warrior looks over her own red-stained armour and that borne by the two men at her side. “There are certain conventions in negotiations, in this part of Essos. Presentation of person is very important.”

It is at this exact moment that Ser Batherjee lopes over to them, a man mountain made of metal and blood. “Well, then,” Brienne answers, “we shall make sure to wash our faces and hands, before discussions begin.”

Ambassador Jorah Mormont drags his astonished gaze away from the truly monumental knight who has just joined their company and laughs. “Brienne of Tarth. I think I’m going to like you.”

/-/-/-/-/

 “I love your toes.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

It is the morning after her return from Essos and Brienne thinks it will be some time before Jaime stops randomly declaring his affections for various parts of her body in the middle of important conversations. At least in these two rooms.

She just smiles at him, though an edge of disbelief colours her voice. “Seven and thirty? Really?”

He nods. “Not bad, I thought.”

He’s right. It’s far more than she’d expected. She sighs.

_It’s going to be a long day._

Jaime paces over to the chest under the window and picks up her cloak from it, shaking it out and looking at it critically. “A few creases,” he says, without a care, perhaps even with a hint of male pride as she blushes. “They’ll drop out, soon enough. At least we didn’t _tear_ it.” He rests it about her shoulders, over her newly strapped on armour and they use one hand each to secure it, together. An old dance, but one they know so well.

“She will be the last?” he asks, suddenly almost nervous.

“Yes, Jaime,” she says, leaning down slightly to brush her lips gently across his. “I know how much you want to see it.”

“Thank you.” His eyes shine, as green as she has ever seen them. “Lolla is probably already waiting for you.”

“Then I’d best be off,” she says warmly. She starts to pace away to the door, but something tugs in her stomach, urgent, insistent. She spins back and reaches for him in a whirl, her fingers softly clasping his dear, beautiful face as she says, “Jaime. _I love you_.”

There is only wonder in her as he looks deeply into her eyes, into _her,_ without doubt. With true feeling. “As I love you, Brienne.”

Then they are more smiling and laughter, for a little while, and if Lolla notices that Brienne’s lips are a little red and swollen when she finally reaches the Great Hall, she does not choose to mention it.

/-/-/-/-/

It will become known as ‘The Day of Knights’, though Brienne isn’t inclined to thank anybody for it.

Lolla remains in Evenfall Hall for the whole day, waiting to bear new cloaks later on. It is Ser Charro who accompanies her in a headlong rush down the stairs to the town. The small, intense man has memorized the names, Houses and practice schedules of those involved and he guides her to where a group of her new knights will be in Herdmarket, his spindly limbs flailing as he makes his first, planned dash towards the stables in between cloakings to grab another from the pile stowed away there.

The first is greeted with the customary roar and general movement towards the Sea Inn. Charro is forced to interrupt the mass exodus as he hurries back with the second cloak. He sharply shouts out ten further names of those he has noticed in the forming crowd, stunning everyone into silence. Brienne lifts the lone cloak from his hands and smiles at him. “You might as well get a pile of them, Ser Charro.”

Within three hours, they have created sixteen knights in Herdmarket alone. Brienne is feeling quite positive about how things are going, but the eastern knight at her side just shakes his head. “Word will spread quickly. It’ll be chaos. From now on, we won’t know where _any_ of them are. I suggest we head for the Dothraki training grounds.”

Brienne listens to his counsel and they pack the remaining cloaks into two sacks. Kholo brings them horses and they canter out to Melee and Long Fields. Thankfully, the news has not reached those training on horse yet. Six more knights are made, in an exuberantly received, but relatively orderly fashion. Brienne fears that this will not last.

As they make their way back to the town they begin to pass more and more people heading in the same direction. Suddenly, Charro reins in his mount, calling to a young man ahead who is marked out by the bow sling resting between his shoulder blades. He becomes a Ser in the dust at the side of the road, the walking smallholders who have already somehow managed to hear about events surrounding him, one burly livestock farmer even producing a tankard of ale, as if out of nowhere, to proffer as the young man rises a knight.

They move on, but progress turns to a plod as the road reaches the base of the rock on which Evenfall Hall stands, near the town. A movement catches her eye, in the trees, off to her left.

_Jaime._

He is on the path to see Bran. He notices them and shouts over. “Any northerners left to find, Ser Charro?”

The little man’s ear jewels clink as he tilts his head, thinking. “Three.”

“I’ll check the Godswood, then.” He turns and walks away, paying her no attention whatsoever. It doesn’t matter.

_He loves me._

She must be looking less stern than is customarily her wont, because suddenly Charro is staring at her intently, his eyes narrowed in sharp curiosity. “They say he likes talking to the trees.”

She snorts. “It’s Ser Jaime, Charro. He’ll talk to anything unfortunate enough to be unable to escape.” They grin at each other even as their horses come to a complete halt in the midst of the thickening throng.

It must take them the better part of another hour to force their way safely through the gathering people and closer to Herdmarket. They are only feet away from the gate when Brienne sees someone she’d missed greatly during her time in Essos. “Rosie, is that _your_ baby?”

The young fisherman’s wife smiles at her, all freckles and dreadfully familiar teeth, though she is short and her hair is soft and black. Brienne has often wondered if there is a kinship between them. Given her father’s dalliances in his latter years, it would hardly be a surprise. But all of his papers had been lost in the destruction of Evenfall Hall and Rosie’s own mother had perished in the very same attack, though whether or not she had been at the Evenstar’s side could not be determined. So if they share blood, it will never be known. “Yes, my Lady. A girl. Nia. Here you are.” Brienne lifts up the immediately, trustingly offered bundle and finds, within moments, her untied hair being tugged in two surprisingly strong little fists.

Rosie tries to apologise, but Brienne won’t have it, albeit that her answer comes out through gritted teeth. “No. She might even make a fine Dragon Warrior one day, I think.” Nia lets go. Brienne smiles at the little one and bounces her softly up and down. Then she passes her carefully back down to her thrilled mother, all the time making sure her mount’s mane is kept out of reach of tiny fingers. Her horse is skittish enough in the press of people, already. “She’s certainly strong enough.” She waves at the cheerful child but then a strained voice rings out to her left.

“My Lady. I have found you a northerner.”

Her heart seems to tighten and she quietly sucks in a deep breath. _It is of no use to be hurt by what simply cannot be._ She turns to him, looking over the neck of Charro’s horse and smiles. “Thank you, Ser Jaime. Please wait here.”

They make their way into the fort and dismount, handing the reins to Kholo. “It has been hours and there is food,” he says shortly, brooking no argument.

Charro slumps to the ground, pulling out a cloak from his sack and passing it up to her. “Go ahead, my Lady. I’ll start the eating.”

Brienne returns to Jaime only to find _his_ hair in the clutches of little Nia. It would appear that this time, the baby has little intention of letting go, despite the fact that she is being held by Rosie. She simply turns to her new knight and carefully draws Oathkeeper from its scabbard. “Kneel.”

Ser Katryn receives her cloak from Brienne herself, because the end of the ceremony sees no sign of an old knight’s hair being relinquished. Indeed, she has herself eaten most of the food Kholo offered her by the time Jaime walks in and leans against the palings beside her, rubbing his scalp with a grimace. “As strong as an aurochs. I would swear she is related to you.”

Ser Charro chokes on a piece of bread and Kholo leans down to helpfully slap him on the back, rather too hard.

Brienne ignores them all, looking at the position of the sun. “Four and twenty. It’s heading for mid-afternoon and we’ve only managed four and twenty.”

Jaime and Kholo shrug at each other. “We’ll help you,” they seem to say together.

In a short time, the search continues, now in earnest. It quickly begins to feel almost frantic. Each ceremony only takes minutes, it is true, but it takes longer and longer to locate the new Dragon Warriors. It is like wading through hip deep mud. Brienne finds herself wishing, more than once, that she’d decided to hold a more formal ceremony, up in the Great Hall, instead of this madness. The thought never lasts long. This is what her new knights always prefer, after all. They keep looking and Jaime ends up having a selection of dark smudges on his face, having been tasked with searching the coal cellars after losing an impromtu thumb wrestling match with Kholo. Fruitlessly, of course.

They find two of their quarry on the dock, one of those actually having to be knighted on the deck of a fishing smack that reeks of old herring, as more people press in to see.

Another is in one of the numerous smokehouses that have sprung up locally, buying her favourite ham. The portly man who runs it promptly offers the shocked young woman free smoked foods for the rest of her life, proud that his business has been the location of a knighting, his face showing that he is already thinking about ways he can use this felicitous event to his advantage. As for her new Dragon Warrior, Brienne is half-convinced she is happier about the ham than her cloak.

It is, or at least it _was_ clothmarket day, and yet another is found in Mikken’s Square, desperately trying to haggle about the price of red ribbon with a trader, who is busy collapsing his stall as she speaks, fully aware that there are celebrations to be attending. She gets her ribbon, in the end.

They make their way back to the harbour and they spend some time simply stuck, huddled together as they try to move and the crowd feels as if it is swirling around them. The atmosphere surrounding them is joyous and it isn’t long before Brienne realises she has become the subject of a game of children. Every so often, a small hand will reach out to tap her armour, only for its owner to wriggle back into the crowds in moments. She finally catches one of them, a little boy frozen in the very act of reaching out to her. She smiles down at him and flicks her arm out, touching it to his fingers. The child suddenly grins and he too disappears, though not before she hears him shout, “She _smiled_ at me!”

Jaime’s shoulder is pinned between herself and Kholo, and Brienne can feel it shaking with laughter. “Stop, it, Ser Jaime,” she grumbles, even if she doesn’t really mean it.

He glances back at her. “But you smiled, my Lady Evenstar. Surely there should be some kind of celebratory cake?” She shoves at him with her own shoulder and Kholo snickers.

Charro is distracted though, as an eastern trader with a wicker basket, close to overfilled with strips of meat resting on his head tries to pass them. “Is that honey-spiced horse?” he shouts out. The trader nods and they begin to haggle in a musical language Brienne has never heard. The exchange is quite heated, with the shorter knight next to her clearly growing increasingly outraged. At one point he looks up at her. “This one would sell his own mother for profit,” he mutters, before turning back to the conversation with even more fervour, gesticulating and becoming ever louder, his features stricken with an outlandish cast of distress. In the end, they come to an agreement, coin is exchanged, and Charro’s little food sack is filled with dried meat.

He huffs as he offers them all some of his hard won morsels. “I feel like I’ve been robbed,” he moans, as Brienne chews on an offered strip, enjoying the sharp tingle of heat on her tongue. Kholo refuses what is offered, his face alone making the point that he doesn’t approve of this outrageous adulteration of the food of his childhood. Jaime, on the other hand, happily takes a piece, shoving it into his mouth in its entirety. It only remains there for a few moments, however, before he spits it back out into his hand, his eyes watering. “What is this?” he asks, his voice strangled.

“Essosi spices,” Brienne answers, raising an amused eyebrow at a grinning Ser Charro. “I first developed a taste for them in Meereen. Though they spice locusts, over there.”

Jaime looks at her in horror and then coughs. “I think I need a drink.”

She shakes her head. “Bread. You need bread.” As if on cue, an older woman stuck next to them tears a hunk of bread from a loaf she has in a basket, offering it to Jaime. “Thank you, Martia,” Brienne says as her beleaguered knight begins to eat it.

Finally, they painfully and slowly shove their way through the jovial throng to the obvious place. The Sea Inn is heaving with people, but a few slightly slurred shouts of ‘ _The Evenstar’_ ease their way in. They find three more new cloaks here, all of them in varying states of inebriation. Perhaps the most memorable of the three, even if it will not prove so for him, is Ser Karyl. He can barely stand, having been celebrating the cloaking of his younger brother Daryk for many hours, but he is determined to be knighted on the same day as his sibling, given that the opportunity has arisen. He only manages to clamber up to his feet afterwards with the help of a large number of sturdy arms, shouting, “Mother will be _so_ proud,” to gales of laughter as he slumps unsteadily back into his seat.

Once they have escaped the seemingly impossible press of bodies inside the Sea Inn, she looks at the harbour front with concern. “Evening is coming and there are a lot of people on the dockside, Ser Jaime. It could be dangerous.” Music is being played nearby and she has to almost shout to be heard over the din.

“Don’t worry, my Lady,” Jaime replies, equally loudly, wincing sympathetically as the tune changes and the unmistakable strains of ‘The Bear and the Maiden Fair’ start to ring out around them. Badly, Brienne notes, with an ever deepening grimace. “Pod and Kyron are rustling up a group of older knights and some boathooks to fish anybody out of the water, should they fall in,” he continues. “And Kholo will start putting up torches soon.” She nods her silent thanks to Kholo, who begins to slowly forge his way through the crowd. Brienne follows him, with Jaime and Charro behind. Kholo leaves them at the gate to Herdmarket Fort and Brienne takes the lead, getting them to the blessedly empty stairs up to Evenfall Hall. They begin their ascent, finally able to breathe after an age, or so it feels, but after only a few steps, Ser Charro sprints up ahead. “Brinxho. _Cease!”_

The young man freezes in place and Charro’s call is exceptionally well timed, as youthful feet have stopped on the lowest of the wider, flatter landings that punctuate the long climb. Little niches are cut into the rock wall that rises from them, making benches for people to rest on. The eastern knight sits down happily and pats the space beside him. “Come and sit, Ser Jaime. Look! The sun is setting.” Jaime picks up his pace, jogging up to take his seat, as Charro rummages in the sack he has borne for most of day, lifting out a cloak. Brinxho gapes at the blue cloth and turns at the singing sound of Oathkeeper being drawn, once more.

“Kneel.”

As the young man drops to a knee and Brienne reaches him, the crowd, about thirty or so feet below, seem to notice what is happening. A roar erupts and Brienne has to wait for it to calm to begin the oathtaking. The words on this impromptu little stage are quietly spoken, but each flash of her sword, as red as it has ever been in the light of the dying sun, brings forth more noise from the people of Tarth. She can still hear Charro and Jaime quietly bickering about who will do the cloaking behind her, with Jaime deploying his well-tested one hand excuse and Charro scoffing at him, replying that he’s been doing this all day and is exhausted. It makes her smile. When Oathkeeper flashes out twice, once on each shoulder, it is Jaime who steps forward to drape blue cloth over Ser Brinxho’s shoulders and Brienne who clasps it around his neck. She invites him to rise and there is such noise as the Summer Islander rises as a knight, under a blood red sky.

She places her hand on young Brinxho’s forearm. Proud of him. “They are cheering for you, Ser.”

The newest knight of the House of Tarth looks at her, oddly. “No, sister-knight. They cheer for _you_.” He turns away without pause, clattering down the stairs to meet a group of his friends who are attempting to gather at the foot of the stairs, with his new cloak.

“He’s right, Brienne,” Jaime says softly and she can barely hear him over the roar of the crowd and the heat of tears welling. The first knight of the House of Tarth gazes at her, coal dust still on his nose and green eyes warm in the fading light. “Look at what you’ve made here. Tarth. Rebuilt.”

She sniffs and widens her eyes, determined not to cry as she looks out over the people filling the little port on the insignificant island that is their home. “We all did. Jaime. All of us.”

“Perhaps not those two,” Charro suddenly says from her right, pointing at a small brawl that has broken out about halfway along the dock. It does not last long, for the blue cloaks flood in to stop it, even as the smallfolk dance around them. The three knights on this stone ledge laugh, but then Ser Charro smiles apologetically. “Ser Jaime. My Lady Evenstar. There are still five to go.” They look at each other ruefully and begin the long climb again, increasingly weary now, though their arrival in the Great Hall comes to them uninterrupted.

“You took your time,” Lolla grouses from her seat at the table nearest the door, her fingers tapping an uneven beat on the wooden surface of the table in front of her in clear impatience.

Charro just drops the sack of cloaks on the table, replying grumpily. “There are only five left!”

“I know,” she says, a tad smugly. “I’ve had maids running around everywhere, just trying to keep me informed.”

She looks at Brienne and tilts her head slowly to the other corner of the nearly empty hall, to a lonely looking figure sat staring into a bowl. “Please cloak Martyn. Right now. He’s so sad. It quite ruined my dinner,” she winks.

Brienne happily paces her way over to the young man, the more familiar bustle of Lolla behind her as she bears a cloak. Dark eyes rise up in sheer disbelief as she approaches and she smiles gently as she asks him to kneel. With only eight people present, this is not the raucous style of a normal knighting, but it suits this new knight well, a quiet happiness covering him with his blue.

Once done, she turns to Lolla, simply asking, “Where’s the next one?”

“The kitchens. Trying to wheedle some more dumplings out of Cook Paget, I believe.” She snorts. “As if that would ever work. I’ve been trying for years and I’m an expert wheedler.”

Their little group, including Ser Martyn, makes its way into the kitchens. Lolla is right. A knight is made there, but he still doesn’t get any extra dumplings.

They head back into the Great Hall.

“Next?”

“Oh, Brienne,” Lolla says, giggling in excitement, “you’ll need _two_ cloaks for our next visit.”

The giggling instantly puts Brienne on her guard. “Lolla. Please explain.”

“You missed them in Herdmarket, this morning. They were very upset. They might be comforting each other.”

“ _No,_ ” Brienne says, even as laughter starts to rumble about her.

“Oh, Enni. _Please_. I’ve been waiting for this for hours! I’ve been _willing_ them not to leave that chamber. They have been together for an age. They’re due to _wed_ in days, so this won’t be surprising to anyone.” Lolla is virtually batting her eyelids, beginning to deploy her own wheedling skills.

Brienne joins in the laughter, though she shakes her head. “It will to _them_. We can do it in the morning.” She sighs. She had really wanted to get them all out of the way today.

Ser Charro speaks up from his place, leaning against the wall, as he scuffs his heel of his boot repeatedly against the base of it, all covered in a concern that is obviously disingenuous. “I’m not sure you’re right, my Lady Evenstar. Can you imagine the harm their young minds are suffering, right now, because you ignored them so cruelly this morning?”

Brienne grins at him. “ _You_ were there, Charro.”

He sighs with overly-dramatic and deep regret, waving a hand about airily. “Ah, but sadly, I am _not_ the Evenstar.”

Lolla nods eagerly. “I agree with Charro.”

“You never agree with Charro,” Brienne says, shortly, though she cannot look on her with anything but fondness.

The little woman’s nose twitches. “He had to be right sometime.”

Charro huffs playfully in response, as Brienne looks at Jaime. He shrugs, with some humour but more nervousness. It is the last cloak that concerns him.

 _The last cloak_.

She points at Lolla, her eyes narrowed. “Well, you will be the one making sure they are clothed.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” she almost shrieks, rising from her seat and dashing off.

“Oh, fuck it _all_ ,” Brienne mutters, swiftly grabbing two cloaks from the sack and striding after Lolla, exhausted in her metal. It isn’t long before Jaime is pacing along at her side, looking at her in sheer astonishment.

“I’ve never heard you say fuck before,” he dryly mutters, “and I’ve known you for half of your life.”

Brienne hears what is unspoken. _And for so much else._

She just waves her arm in the vague direction of the woman who is somehow currently outpacing her, despite her miniscule legs, apparently powered only by eagerness and the will to incite gossip.

“Oh, I understand completely,” he grins. “If I had a golden dragon for every time I’d said fuck to her…”

“…we’d own the Iron Bank by now,” they finish together, laughing as they turn into the tight corridor where Parthis and Jana’s chamber is to be found.

They are just in time to see a small form disappear into a doorway and to hear a loud shout. “Rise and shine for the Evenstar. Not like _that_ , young man! And put some clothes on. Nobody can don a blue cloak on its own!”

_Oh, but they can._

Brienne can _feel_ Jaime biting his lip next to her as Lolla comes back out into the hallway and grins at them victoriously. “I think they’ll be out shortly,” she says, as Brienne tries not to blush.

They walk forwards slowly, the others catching up to them as they reach the door. They all remain, not without effort, resolutely silent as thumps and shuffles can be heard. The sure signs of hurried dressing.  Jana is the first to emerge and she seems entirely unruffled by the sudden audience, but Parthis is glowing red as he is pulled out of his chamber by his lady.

There are various snickers and chuckles from behind Brienne when the shy, young man appears.

_Poor Parthis._

Brienne struggles to speak. “Parthis. Your tunic…is…”

The beleaguered youngster glances down and dashes back into his chamber with a surprisingly high-pitched yelp, to put it on the right way around. There is some more laughter, but then Jana looks at Jaime. The Dornishwoman’s eyes are unnervingly serious. “Please tell me there will be another knighting.” Jaime nods. Jana and Myrcella have been close for years. “Good,” she continues. “Our window is open and she has been in the courtyard for a little while. She is extremely upset. May I attend?” She seems to understand the reasons for waiting, but wants to witness this moment. Wishes to be there for her friend.

“Of course,” is the quiet reply.

Parthis reemerges with a timid grin and two more knights are made. Brienne finds it very moving that Ser Jana refuses to rise as a knight until Ser Parthis can join her and that they don’t stop holding hands for the length of the two short ceremonies. After congratulations have been offered and two pairs of boots have been fetched, they all make their way down to the yard. Ser Charro had thought ahead, bringing the very last cloak so they can go straight out, into the cool night air.

They hear Myrcella before they can see her. Normally so calm and collected, her voice is almost a shriek as she roars out her rage. “I have been here _years_ longer than anyone else without a cloak. I’ve worked _harder_. And I’m _better_. _This just isn’t fair, Anara!”_

Brienne hears Jaime mutter, “Sounds just like her mother,” under his breath and tries not to smile, but when she looks at him, all she sees is a form racked by guilt and she hurts for him. His daughter is right, after all. She is better than most and her trial has been unfairly long, even if it was necessary that she be made to wait. None of it was of her own making.

Their little group files out into the yard and Ser Anara, who is holding the furiously weeping Lannister, simply says, “They’re _here_ , Myrie.” But then she narrows her eyes at Jaime, biting out her next words. “And about fucking time too, if I may say so.”

Jaime nods, not taking offense. He has always been fond of Anara. She is very astute and a true asset to the House of Tarth, but can take on the most feisty fishwife when it comes to cursing. She is one of the few people Jaime can be verbally free with, in the sparring yards. At the moment, she is actually being positively restrained.

Myrcella pulls herself out of her friend’s arms and turns unsteadily towards the little group gathered on the other side of the yard. She sniffs and seems to shake as she softly asks, “Really? It’s _time?_ ”

Brienne nods surely, stepping towards the woman. But as the Evenstar grasps the hilt of her sword, at the first snick of it leaving its sheath, she almost panics, waving her arms about wildly. “Wait. _Stop!_ I would like to speak to you privately before we begin.” Myrcella glances behind Brienne, before dropping her eyes to the ground.  “With Ser Jaime,” she whispers.

“As you wish. Come with me.” Brienne turns away and stalks back into Evenfall, grabbing a candle from a wall sconce and finding the first empty storeroom she can for this sudden conference. Well, nearly empty. She walks in past the few barrels scattered about, putting the candle down on top of the one in the corner and leaning uncomfortably against the back wall next to it, her feet aching.

She watches first Jaime, then Myrcella and Anara come in. Anara closes the door.

Jaime’s daughter approaches Brienne, almost timidly, and she peers down at her in the half-light. “What do you need to say, Myrcella?”

For all that Lady Myrcella Lannister seems wary, her answer is immediate. “We can discard our family names when we become knights, yes?”

Jaime sucks in a sharp breath, but Brienne ignores him. “Yes. Anara did, as you know. It isn’t all that uncommon.”  In fact, it is fairly standard amongst the Essosi, and many Westerosi dragons simply wish to sever their links when they pledge to serve, whether through bastardy, the shame of their family reputations, or indeed their own pasts. Some simply choose it as a sign of their dedication.

Eerily familiar green eyes look up at her from far lower than she is used to, suddenly as hard as flint. “I would wish to discard mine.”

Brienne is gentle in her rebuttal. “You _must_ think about this, Myrcella. You have a powerful name. What if your family require you to…”

She is interrupted with pure determination. “I will _never_ make a political marriage, as my mother was forced to. Never!” Myrcella suddenly laughs, though it is an uncomfortable thing, almost hysterical. Anara steps forward and reaches out, grasping her shoulder, and she gentles under the woman knight’s touch, seems to calm. When she speaks again, Myrcella sounds pained, yet determined. “In fact, I will never marry at all.”

It is Jaime who replies. There is no judgement in him. Only worry. True concern. “You are so _young_ to make such a decision. There may come a time when…”

 _“There will not!”_ his child thunders, spitting in an instant state of fury. But in a heartbeat, her rage is gone and then she laughs again, almost hopelessly, shaking her head as her small hand rises to cover the slightly larger one on her shoulder. She closes her eyes and sighs. “I do not keep the company of men,” she says, quietly yet firmly.

Brienne somehow finds herself fairly unsurprised. _Thank you, Kholo._ But Jaime rocks back slightly, the back of his thighs hitting the edge of a barrel with a slight rasp of leather over unevenly cut wood. For a few dreadful moments he is frozen in shock. But then he begins to shake with an unsounded chuckle, a slow grin spreading as his eyes follow an arm from a comforting hand on a shoulder to an obvious destination. “Oh. This one.” He looks between Myrcella and Anara with mock horror. “Really, Myrcella? She has such a _dreadful_ mouth on her.”

Large, brown eyes glint in humour. “You can fucking talk, old man.”

Jaime tilts his head, reappraising his long appreciated opposition. “You’re the offspring of a dullard sea slug and a flightless, bastard goose, aren’t you?”

Anara lifts a dark eyebrow. “Weak, Ser. And at least I’m not the rancid piss of a wine-sodden whore.”

And so it begins. There is an age of fast-flung cunts and whoresons, of the low-hanging ballsacks of ancient, toothless rams and the slimy undersides of sinking, rotten wherries, as a long since ongoing, yet always thoroughly enjoyed, battle is made fresh and new.

Myrcella eventually steps in closer to Brienne and Anara’s arm drops away as she lets the merry war continue behind her. With some measure of relief, she smiles up at the Evenstar. “Anybody would think this was about them.”

Brienne just looks at the young woman with a kind seriousness. “You are certain.” It isn’t even a question anymore.

Myrcella nods. There is no doubt in her. That is clear. There is no bitterness in her when she speaks again. Just plain reason. “Yes. _Baratheon. Lannister._ Millstones around my neck, both. They mark me out.” She raises her hand timidly to her face, clearly knowing that the ruler of Tarth can understand her perspective like few others. It stops the noise behind her, though Brienne doesn’t believe she is aware of it. “I am marked out enough, already.” Then Myrcella grows silent and Brienne finds herself resting her own huge fingers on a small shoulder, in comfort and encouragement. Myrcella struggles to speak, looking at the flagstone floor, yet when she does, in gently broken words, it feels like the world is shifting beneath their feet.  “And it might be nice to share a name with my only living parent, as well as the woman I love.”

Brienne’s throat thickens, her voice now strange in her ears. “Then it will be so recorded, in the Blue Book.”

Tears are falling from familiar pools of green when she lifts her head. “Thank you, my Lady Evenstar.”

The knight-to-be swings away from Brienne quickly, only to find herself in the arms of her lady knight. Foreheads press together in a wonderfully recognizable way and the taller of the two mutters, “Did I not tell you it would be well, Myrie?”

They nod against one another but then Myrcella reluctantly pulls away from the embrace. She turns to Ser Jaime of Tarth and it is so hard a thing to see, because they are both carrying so many years of hurt and it is so delicate.

Anara looks at Brienne nervously. She is no less concerned. But this is not for them. They can only watch as the young woman steps in front of the older man. Both of them strong, yet with so many pains to bear.

Myrcella is blunt. “I will never call you father.” Brienne can see Jaime fight the act of flinching. Then he simply nods in understanding.  It is right that it should be so. Myrcella winces, as if made uncomfortable by a thought. “And I can’t call you uncle.” She looks momentarily bewildered. “What do I callyou?”

He smiles. _“Jaime,”_ he offers, softly, as time echoes. “My name is Jaime.”

His child nods. “Jaime.” Then she does something extraordinary. She steps in and wraps her arms gently about him. “Jaime,” she mutters into the cloth covering him. Before his arms have risen to enfold her, he is weeping. But then, so is she.

Brienne and Anara wait as pain flows out of them, half-stifled sobs and soft caresses of hair and faces signs of things that were lost a lifetime ago. Yet it can only go on for so long.

Eventually, Jaime lifts his gaze, fixing it on Anara. “Is it too soon for me to unleash the warning about you hurting her?” His voice is gravelly, uneven, but laid upon a bed of sheer joy.

The returning hand gesture is positively foul, yet sent with a warm smile, so Jaime’s reaction is only to wave Anara in, to join them, with yet another quietly muttered insult, this time about the swollen, festering, innards of a sheep.

Brienne feels utterly pointless, looking away as the two other knights in the room fall into colourfully quiet bickering again, even as they hold each other and the one so dear to them both. She spends a while looking at a crack in a stone, not far behind the candle, wondering how it got to be there, until her attention is drawn by Myrcella frantically waving at her with a free hand.

Anara and Jaime are back in full flow, roughly whispering dear insults into each other’s hair, yet clearly Myrcella has had enough. That’s understandable. So has she. Brienne rocks her body forward from the wall and steps forward. “I’m sure Myrcella is thoroughly enjoying this special moment you two are sharing, but as I’ve already performed six and thirty cloakings today, do you think we could move things along?”

Anara’s head pops away from Jaime’s in shock. “How many? You must be exhausted.” She swiftly waves a distinctly authoritarian finger right in front of his nose. “Youhad better look after her, later on.”

This time, Jaime really flinches, caught completely unawares. Anara nearly crows as she pulls her Myrie away and towards the door, dropping a swift kiss onto her lips. “See, I told you. Again.” They both look back and Anara smiles with utter sincerity. “Don’t worry, nobody will hear it from us. We like you both alive.” She cants her head in the direction of Jaime, albeit that she is gazing squarely at Brienne. “Even him. We’ll be waiting.”

Two grown women head off, running and giggling like children.

“She’s going to bear my name,” Jaime whispers disbelievingly, before the sound of their hurried bootsteps have fallen away. Brienne moves to him and tucks an ever untangled lock of hair behind his ear. The smile she aims at him is gentle but restrained, for she cannot have him dwelling on this just yet.

“Yes,” she mildly offers. “Though technically, it’s _mine_. She strokes his beard a little. “And if you’re going to start claiming knights, I must insist you take Ser Cassadon.”

Jaime tries not to look vastly offended. “The most unashamedly flatulent knight in all of Westeros?” He turns, steps away and lowers himself into a blindingly courteous bow, somehow making every line of his body scream with sarcasm. “Why thank you, my Lady.”

Brienne smiles. “Oh, I’ve been to Essos now, Jaime. I’m pretty convinced he’d win that title there too.”

He rises and for all of his joy, their joy, she can do nothing but cup his face in sudden concern. “Are you well, Jaime? After all, your bloodline has died, today. At least for you.”

He kisses her softly and his eyes shine. “I couldn’t be happier, Brienne. We should go.” Then he is pulling her back towards the courtyard with a remarkable amount of eagerness. When they are in the doorway, when the never-ending burden of not being seen to touch strikes them once more, they stop for the briefest moment. And they are happy. They truly _are_. Given that people can see them, he does nothing but tip his head in the direction of two waiting women, with a proud grin. “Look at them. _My girls_ ,” he whispers.

Brienne just about holds her composure, not even wanting to know how Anara would react to that particular statement, and strides out across the torchlit cobbles, her gait firm. She comes to a stop in front of the Lady Myrcella Lannister, soon to be Ser Myrcella of Tarth, Oathkeeper singing its way free for the last time on this Day of Knights.

“Kneel.”

/-/-/-/-/

She never stops surprising him.

He leans against their little doorway, as he does so often, and takes in the peculiar sight of her.

Brienne has pulled the chair he thinks of as his towards her, resting her legs on it as she sits on her own. She is naked, but the Blue Book rests open on her legs, near her knees. Jaime can see she has been filling in the names of their new knights, but has fallen asleep, quill and inkwell tipped to the floor, fingers and thigh blackened as she snores, her head leaning to one side.

Jaime smiles as he dampens a cloth and moves to her.

She must be exhausted. Her long voyage home from war is barely gone. Today was an arduous slog and warmth blooms in his chest when he thinks of last night, when sleep had been the farthest thing from either of their minds.

He has to wake her though. Sudden shocks in sleep can often, he has long since learnt, lead to bruising before she is even conscious. He knows she has to show the same caution with him. Her hair is damp as he runs his stump over it. “Brienne. Love. Brienne. Wake up.” She half wakes with a slight grimace, blinking repeatedly, her eyes unfocussed until they settle on him. Then she smiles too, a weak, tired thing, but one which speaks of much more than simple happiness. “Jaime.”

He crouches down next to her. “I have to clean your thigh.”

Her gaze shifts and she appears puzzled for a moment, but then her features become a little sheepish. “I was writing their names in the Blue Book.”

“I can see that, love,” he says softly, as he wipes at the ink spilled on her skin. They are quiet as her freckles slowly re-emerge, one by one. Once done, he throws the cloth into the fireplace, more out of habit than anything.

Brienne gestures to the book, her voice still loaded and heavy with sleep. “I wanted to show you, Jaime. Your daughter’s page. She has your name now.”

Jaime stands and looks down at the book, wiping his fingers dry on his breeches and running them gently over Brienne’s neat script. It seems to make Myrcella’s choice more real to him.

_How strange that a few words, scratched in ink, can make a man so happy._

He reaches out and closes the book, lifting it away from Brienne’s legs and placing it on the empty chair. His name cannot be found in this Blue Book. This is, in fact, the sixth or perhaps even the seventh. Ser Jaime of Tarth is the first name to be seen, in the very first volume. Brienne, of course, doesn’t appear until the fourth; for all that she is the Evenstar and has elevated everyone on Tarth to knighthood except him.

When he turns back to her Brienne is still smiling, but it is clear her weariness is bone-deep. “We should get you into bed, love,” he suggests. Her eyes light at this last word, at the newness and truth in it, but then she nods, almost child-like, rising to her feet before him, the movement sluggish and heavy.

She reaches out to run her fingers over his cheek. “I have to sleep. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m not,” he reassures her. “There’s plenty of time for us. Besides, I think everybody is going to be asleep under the tables in the Sea Inn for days, yet.” A near silent laugh falls from her as she steps over to the bed and crawls under the covers, pulling them up so far that all Jaime can see of her is the untidy nest of her pale hair. He unlaces his breeches and kicks them off, only now realising that he is very tired too. He joins her under the covers, molding his body to hers, enjoying the simple contact, and is content to let the hum of want that sings through his blood at the feel of her be just that until later on.

She is almost asleep again already, but five words make their way out of her before she is gone, small in sound, a mere whisper in the night, but somehow larger than the whole world. “I love you, old man.”

He rests his lips against her, speaking to her skin. “Love you, wench.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be called 'The Visitor'.


	14. The Visitor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   
>  Banner by [Ro Nordmann](http://ro-little-shop-of-wonders.tumblr.com)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My endless thanks to my wonderful beta RoseHeart and dear Nurdles. I couldn't do this without you.
> 
> Further thanks to LadyinRed, who gave me the gift of tinterwebs magicks.
> 
> Disclaimer: I still own nothing

 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE VISITOR

The clatter of horse’s hooves as they pass through the gate to the Red Keep is now a familiar sound to Brienne. Yet whilst she would normally only find herself overcome with a guarded weariness at her arrival and her sudden proximity to the dangers of politics, today is not the same. She feels as if a thousand clawed beasts are trying to dig their way out of her stomach.

She had gone straight from Essos to Tarth, content that Jorah’s missives, paired with her own, would fully apprise the Queen of the situation in the East. But a mere moon after her arrival she had been summoned to King’s Landing. And the curtly worded demand changed everything.

She brings her large bay horse to a halt and grasps her pommel firmly, dismounting with a practised ease, despite the weight of her blue armour. Pod and Kholo do the same at her sides, almost in perfect time. After she hands the reins over to a stable lad, she turns. Ser Jaime of Tarth is looking at her from atop his black mount, his face impassive, awaiting her order. She gives him a small nod and he too slides from his saddle.

Once their horses are led away, they move to the side of the courtyard to allow the other knights the room to find their feet and get their animals stabled. As per the Queen’s command, Jaime is flanked by four knights, as he has been throughout their journey to the capital. In all honesty, they hadn’t taken their duties _very_ seriously until their group of twenty approached King’s Landing. Still, in the corner of an inn one evening, he’d quietly confessed that he really didn’t much enjoy this new sport of pissing publicly. Brienne would’ve laughed, but the worry of the summons had only been compounded by the reaction to the return of the Kingslayer, in the people they encountered on their way. The ordinary folk in taprooms and on the road seemed to look upon him with a silent sort of awe. Neither he nor Brienne could account for it and it only made their hurried theories on the matter of his return, thrown out in the frantic hours before they travelled, seem more unlikely.

They simply have no idea why he is here.

When all of the mounts are gone, Jaime calls to her, his voice polite but clearly under significant strain. “My Lady Evenstar. Where did he fall? I can’t remember. I’ve never been able to. And Ser Myrcella would like to know.”

_Of course. Tommen._

Brienne glances at his daughter in momentary shock. Her eyes are almost wild as she looks about them, searching for long lost blood on cobbles.

_Why did I not think of it?_

Blue eyes join green in the search and though her own is more fruitful, she cannot be precise. “To the walls,” she orders and even those not wearing cloaks do so in seconds.

She paces away from the Keep itself, at first noting the shapes of the buildings around her against the sky. Then she looks down, placing her feet precisely where they had been what feels like a lifetime ago. The Dragons already know what she is doing and remain silent. Nobody else dares to make a sound.

Ser Charro, back as he is on Tarth, has brought many strange ideas to the island, but many of them _work_ and this is one such. That the senses can improve memory.

As she shakes her head, preparing herself, she remembers the young woman she once was, one who would choose to associate every small rock and ill-built wall with a certain knight. The thought almost makes her smile, but her purpose here is serious and she pushes it away, letting her mind fall quiet even as she draws Oathkeeper. She lets time take her.  Her blade shifted to the right as a body fell from a great height. Her view was blocked. She did not see him land.

Brienne begins an odd, stuttering dance as her memories shift like quicksilver through an hour long battle. She doesn’t recall all of it, just short bursts. Despite the weight and movement of the sword in her hand, she doesn’t remember seeing the body of the boy king, the poor, doomed lad on the threshold of becoming a man, shattered on the ground. Yet deep inside, she knows she did.

Her eyes open and she nods at Jaime again.

She slashes her sword out, again to the right, but downwards this time, sending a silent apology to the ghost of a balding man with one eye she’d partially disemboweled. _It must have taken you an age to die. I’m sorry._

Then she quickly turns to her left, moving Oathkeeper to her off hand as she rips the metal from Jaime’s head, though he is not there now and it was so long ago, and throws it at his opponent, suddenly clasping the air where his hair once was. She realizes, for the first time, that he almost fell quite badly, staggering backwards as she dragged him and threw her weight against him at a stone sill, nothing but desperation and menace in her.

_He spoke of Cersei._

And there it was. _There._

She had twisted his head towards the burning keep and, for a half a heartbeat, she’d looked too. A slender gap in the maul and blood had appeared, permitting her to see Tommen. After he fell.

Brienne strides out in an instant, crouching down awkwardly in her armour to run her hands over a sweep of cobblestones. “Here. I am certain.” She repeats the movement. “Head. Body.” She chooses not to tell the father and sister of the dead king that he had been mangled, nearly smashed to pieces, his remains spread over a wider area than she has indicated. She looks up at Jaime when he moves forward with his guard. He _knows_ because he has seen war and his gaze is grateful, as Myrcella seems to totter closer with Anara at her side.

Brienne rises and gives another order. This time it is harshly barked. “Curtain.” Jaime’s guards peel away and, as the two knights kneel to touch the precious, cursed stones, every one of the other blue cloaks form a wall around them, their faces turned outwards, affording what privacy they can to their brother and sister knights. Brienne prowls around the outside of this ring of steel, glaring up at the windows and balconies, truly pleased that she can still be quite intimidating as faces fast disappear from the vantage points above.

In truth, the curtain was something she had first thought of to protect the modesty of female knights with personal injuries in the battlefield. Before Tarth, there were no women knights and she’d been worried that the possibility of exposure of various body parts might prove intimidating to this new breed of warrior. After all, she is hardly a normal woman and her lack of care about the matter might not have proven widespread.

Surprisingly, there were few women who demanded this protection, many choosing to be treated just as their brothers, and now the measure is called upon rarely, but for different reasons. It is almost always tied in with death, for the most part when warriors themselves are dying. Ser Corrin had held her hand as he died, after her first request for a curtain. It _had_ been a request then, not an order, but even as he bled his last, dying from a sheer accident in Herdmarket stables, he’d smiled up at her. Strangely content. “So much blue,” he’d whispered, “like the sky.” Corrin’s last words had spread and now it is not uncommon for dying Dragon Warriors to ask for the curtain.  

Brienne hears Myrcella sobbing, but cannot see her. This is only the thirteenth time that she herself has called for the curtain, though she can’t speak for the blue cloaks now scattered throughout the Dragon Queen’s domain. Though this is the first time _she_ has called it for knights who are not about to meet the Warrior, or perhaps the Stranger.

She continues to pace, but then she sees a welcome face on a short man as he emerges from a doorway and joins her. He says nothing, merely noting where her knights stand and looking up at hercuriously. Brienne has always thought that Tyrion would’ve been the one to arrange the retrieval and interment of his nephew. He would be more aware of where the young king landed than anybody.

They listen, both of them pained, to the sounds of purest grief. Brienne reaches down and wraps her fingers over his shoulder. She has heard enough of Tommen and knows enough of Tyrion to be aware that he grieves too. He pointedly ignores the gesture. But then Brienne taps that same shoulder firmly to bring his attention back up, tipping her head towards the group. Tyrion shakes his head firmly. “This is for them,” he silently mouths. She nods in understanding.

It is a little while yet before the curtain breaks and two tear sodden knights emerge. Myrcella walks straight to Anara, tangling their fingers together, though they do nothing more. Jaime heads for her, though his steps falter when he realizes his brother is standing at her side.

She watches her silver lion, for he is mostly silver now and she doesn’t care that he is only still a lion in her head, as he squares his shoulders. “Why am I _here_ , brother mine?”

Tyrion’s voice is hard and Brienne thinks it is because he always stubbornly refuses to grieve, preferring to be harshly clever instead. “You have managed to garner yet another name, dear brother. Within the hour, you must explain it to the Queen.”

Jaime tilts his head, looking at his youngest sibling for an age. But then he smiles, a sharp, bright, bitter slash of a thing. “You’re not even going to tell me what it is, are you?”

“It’s better if I don’t,” Tyrion replies lightly as he turns and walks away. He doesn’t look back.

When he is gone, Jaime and Brienne look at each other and for a moment, everything is plain between them. But then his guard gathers around him and his face becomes blank once more. It doesn’t matter. It never would. She knows how he feels, as surely as he knows what she does.

They all move towards the keep and Brienne’s gut remains tight.

_He is scared._

_But then, so am I._

/-/-/-/-/

The Iron Throne stands empty.

For more than an hour they have been made to wait, standing stock still at the bottom of its steps, Jaime’s guards paired at each side of him. He suspects the delay is quite full of purpose. They have made no sound in this time, just an occasional shaking of a head or a scratching of a cheek breaking the silence.

Brienne stands away to his right, unmoving as marble while nothing happens. Her capacity for stillness has often impressed him as much as her grace in movement, at least with a sword in her hand. The remaining dragons are stationary in two ranks of seven behind him. He is quite proud of them, for in his experience they are not often given to such restraint, but he daren’t say it out loud. Not here. It is not his place.

This delay has given him much time to think. Of the strangeness of his reception in the inns and on the roads to this place. Of Brienne’s face, so briefly full of an almost girlish hope when she had first received the raven, quickly clouding with the doubt and fear that he has always carried about this day. For he’s long since believed it was coming and that it would bring him no good. Jaime has always known that the Queen wasn’t done with him.

He simply can’t work out why.

_Or more importantly, why now?_

It makes no sense. His position on Tarth has not altered. His authority has not increased. Early on, it had been agreed that no knightings should ever occur in Brienne’s absence, so that even the slightest suspicion of his wielding any true power would be quelled. She is the only knight he has ever made and even that was only done after he had dispatched the single raven he has sent from Tarth during his whole banishment there. It was to the Queen herself, in his own atrocious hand, and her reply had been swift and short, totaling two words. _You may._

Nothing on Tarth is changed. So something must have changed _here_.

As the doors behind them open, Jaime feels relieved that they are about to find out the reason for his strange visit. Even if it means his own, oft-delayed end is finally upon him.

Soft footsteps draw closer and the Targaryen Queen walks into view, with only her handmaiden and two guards. As she mounts but two steps before the throne and turns towards him, clearly unthreatened by their presence,  Jaime finds himself confused by the lack of numbers in her escort.

_If I am to die, would she not want a slightly larger audience?_

He is on edge as violet eyes regard him, for all that the Queen seems almost easy in her stance, a curious lilt to her head and a hand resting on a hip. The years have been kind to Daenerys, but she has not been left unmarked by her time bearing the burdens of ruling. A fine web of lines spreads out from the corners of her eyes and the skin above her upper lip is strangely marked by tiny wrinkles, as if she is often given to frowning.

She looks to his right and speaks to Brienne. “You can dismiss Ser Jaime’s guards, my Lady Evenstar.”

Blue eyes flicker in their direction momentarily. “Fall in.”

The men at Jaime’s sides move as one, taking their places at the rear of the ranks behind him.

The Queen gazes at him silently for some time more before she addresses him. Her tone is light, but loaded. “You look older, Ser Jaime.”

He is careful in his reply. This is no time for rashness. “We are all older, Your Grace.”

“This is so,” she quietly agrees. “You sent me a raven once. In it, I recall you claiming that it was the only one you had sent from Tarth.”

He nods warily. “That remains so.”

“Are you certain?” Now her words have a distinct edge.

“Yes.”

She pauses. “Have you ever heard of the name ‘The Winter Knight’?”

_What?_

“No. I have not.”

The Queen takes one step forward and although that makes her shorter than him, he is somehow the one who feels small. “Again, I must ask you, as your _ruler._ Are you certain?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

She still looks at him. Jaime is clearly being measured and he doesn’t like it.

“You are instrumental in choosing those who would train on Tarth, are you not?”

These changes of subject are strange and unnerving. He must be very cautious here. “Yes, but there is no real power in it. I am merely one of the best able to judge ability. It is a useful way in which I can serve.”

There is another long period of deathly silence until the Queen speaks once more. “I understand you were present when Lady Myrcella Lannister was tested.”

 _Gods, not Myrcella._ Jaime tries to tamp down the sudden sense of panic that threatens to overwhelm him. “I was, though the decision to accept her was Ser Kholo’s, not mine.”

Her following question is quick and sharp. “It was a long test, was it not? Despite her obvious talent?”

Jaime takes a deep breath. “It was.”

“And it happened surprisingly late in the day?”

_How can she know this?_

“Testings have been commonplace for some time and must fit in around training,” he says, almost through gritted teeth. “They can happen at any time.”

Queen Daenerys inclines her head slightly, seemingly satisfied with his answers and Jaime feels calm return to him. But only for a moment. “It was your nameday recently?”

Yet another change of tack. _Well, this is damned unsettling._ “Yes. A fortnight past.”

“In that case, whilst all other restrictions remain, your banishment is lifted until your next one. That is when it will recommence. You will retain a small cohort of Dragon Warriors of your own choosing, though they must include the Evenstar herself, until then. They are to ensure that you do not run.”

“I would not in any case,” he replies, utterly bewildered by this seemingly pointless turn of events.

“Be that as it may,” she says, with a small smile, “these are the conditions of this freedom I am granting you. It is in recognition of the service you have given to the Iron Throne. To me.”

Jaime can do nothing but bow. “Your Grace is most kind.”

The Dragon Queen ignores him now, her voice suddenly hard, nearly imperious.  “Ser Myrcella of Tarth. Step forward.” Jaime flinches and has to bite his own tongue to remain silent as his lone surviving child walks to his side, looking at the holder of the Iron Throne fearlessly. Jaime, however, is not without fear. Far from it. _Surely she would not harm my daughter out of spite?_ He can only watch and quake as Daenerys Targaryen speaks, ungently. “I was generous enough, some years ago, to grant you a family name. When you had none.”

If Myrcella is at all concerned by this query, she does not show it. “Yes, Your Grace.”

“And yet you have nullified it.”

The knight at his side is all reason and politeness in her reply. “It is the right of all Dragon Warriors to show their dedication to the Iron Throne by choosing the name Tarth when they gain their cloak, Your Grace. Many have done so.”

Violet eyes narrow. “And this was what you were doing, in making that choice?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” his daughter lies, utterly convincingly. And Jaime couldn’t be more proud of her.

The Queen stares at Myrcella most intently for some time, but then she smiles. “Then I am satisfied. Our business here is done.” Without pause, she simply leaves the Throne Room, her handmaiden and guards going with her.

The Dragon Warriors of Tarth look at each other in absolute confusion, barring Brienne, who is glaring down at her feet, her nostrils flaring. She is obviously furious, but about what in particular, Jaime cannot say.

None of this makes any sense. There were no answers here at all.

_And where in the seven hells is Tyrion?_

/-/-/-/-/

The silence in the small chamber is deafening and the air is thick with a deeply unpleasant tension.

Brienne has not moved her attention from the dull surface of a large flagstone since Tyrion arrived some minutes ago, refusing even to acknowledge his greeting, her features unremittingly bleak. Kholo is much the same, though his eyes, dark with suppressed fury, seem to bore into the back of Jaime’s brother’s head instead.

Jaime doesn’t know why they should be so angry, though he is sure it has something to do with the information the Queen has clearly been getting from Tarth. In truth, he has barely thought of it, wrestling himself with the unfathomable temporary lifting of his banishment and the fear triggered in him by the Throne Room confrontation between the Targaryen ruler and his daughter.

Tyrion stands in the middle of the chamber. If he is threatened by the sheer bulk of strong bodies around him, he doesn’t show it, but his own lack of words speaks volumes as to the precariousness of his position here.

It is Pod who finally chooses to speak. “So they are calling Ser Jaime the Winter Knight, now?”

Tyrion smiles in what seems to be relief. “Yes, Pod.” He looks at Jaime. “The once dreaded Kingslayer is now a genuine folk hero. There are even songs.”

_Just what I needed. More songs._

“Has all of Westeros been drinking itself into madness since I’ve been gone?” Jaime asks. “Because that makes no fucking sense at all, Tyrion.”

His brother shrugs. “The Queen is growing older. It is becoming increasingly clear that she will never bear a child to replace her on the throne. People are afraid, Jaime. Nobody wants a return to war, but at this rate it seems likely.”

“So why would they want _me_?”

“I do not think they want you to rule, as such. The people want somebody to save them from conflict and as far as they are concerned, you already have.”

Jaime grins bitterly as pieces start to fall into place in his mind. “It makes me a threat to her.”

Tyrion nods. “Even though you would not wish to be so. The Queen knows this, Jaime.”

“She can’t kill me,” Jaime reasons. He sees Tyrion just watching and waiting for him to see the larger picture. He has been isolated from this world for so long. “That would be unpopular. So instead I will be paraded about Westeros for a while. Seen as the old man I am. As no possible saviour of the people. No hero.” Jaime leans forward and glares into the eyes of his brother. “And if it just so happens that the one escorting me is the Evenstar, certain rumours might float back to the surface, curtailing her wider influence as well. And then I’ll head back off to my place of banishment, like a good little subject, properly cowed and obedient. Nicely done,” he hisses. “Is this your work, brother? Because it simply stinks of you.”

“No, Jaime, it isn’t, truly,” Tyrion says, sounding quite desperate. “I swear it.”

For long moments Jaime can do nothing but spill out unspoken hostility, yet there is only honesty in his younger brother, so he lets things rest.

Brienne does not. She lifts her head and steps towards Tyrion, making him crane his neck uncomfortably as she looms over him with a dark sense of purpose that seems almost unnatural in her. “That day. In the yard. Not only did you know, Lord Lannister, but you made it happen.”

Jaime can’t follow this, but Tyrion is obviously afraid of her. “I did, my Lady Evenstar. I'm sorry.”

In a heartbeat, the threat in her is gone and Brienne suddenly seems close to tears. “All of these years. You could have told me. Lessened the risk to us. To your own brother.”

Tyrion smiles nervously. “I really couldn’t. My wife and now my children are at Winterfell, not on some impregnable island fortress, stuffed full of fearsome warriors. And unlike all of you, I am not very good at defending anyone with a sword.”

Brienne nods, a tiny thing, almost in understanding. “Who is his weak point? For whom has he done this?”

“That I have never known,” Tyrion says, only to flinch as Brienne’s hands close into fists at her sides in frustration, even if Jaime is aware his brother is completely safe from her. “It is so. Threats from me are rarely ever seen as…threatening, for some reason. I will find out though, my Lady. This I promise. It is the least I can do,” Tyrion finishes earnestly. The Evenstar nods.

Jaime watches as she turns to her Master of Horse, her face serious. “Ser Kholo. You are now the Defender of Tarth. You must return there immediately.”

The Dothraki warrior casually pushes himself away from the wall. “Punishment, inavva?”

Brienne frowns. “None, gaezo. Things must remain absolutely the same until my return.” She pauses, thinking.  “Though you should put Ser Charro in charge of the ravenloft and give him one word from me. _Blessed_. He will know what it means. I will send word of where we travel.”

“Ser Kholo, their first destination might well be Casterly Rock,” Tyrion interrupts, nearly timidly, at least for him.

Jaime sneers at this. “How charming of the Queen to plan our journey as well.”

Tyrion shakes his head with certainty. “This has nothing to do with the Queen, Jaime. It has everything to do with Genna.”

Jaime’s chest tightens strangely and he nods at Brienne and Kholo. “The Rock it is.”

/-/-/-/-/

Brienne has had to hurry to respond to the Queen’s summons, so she is dressed only in her boots, breeches and a loose linen tunic as, at the well-timed nods of a heavily armed pair of guards, she opens the short wooden door and ducks through it, finding herself on the roof of the Red Keep. It may be late summer, but the evening air is rarely still this high up and the dampness in her hair from the baths almost chills the tips of her ears in moments.

Daenerys Targaryen and Missandei, her ever present handmaiden, are alone out here.

_At least I am no longer seen as a physical threat._

The stunningly beautiful former slave of the east stands back from the castellations, her dark knuckles made pale on the grip of the candlelamp she is grasping, clearly finding the view difficult to cope with. The Queen herself shows no such hesitation, standing on tiptoes and leaning out, an elbow resting on top of a raised section of stonework as she holds her head out over thin air, apparently carefree.

Brienne waits for her to speak, as is only proper.

“Everything is so small from up here. It is almost like seeing things from the back of a flying dragon.”

“I would not know, Your Grace.”

“I suppose not,” the diminutive Queen says, stepping away from the edge of the building and turning towards her, to the obvious relief of her loyal servant. “There are matters of which I would wish to speak with you.”

Brienne smiles. “That makes sense.”

The Queen smiles too. “I wanted to apologise, my Lady Evenstar. Brienne. May I call you Brienne?”

“Yes. I think it is your right to call me whatever you choose, Your Grace. You need never apologise for it.”

The Queen shakes her head gently. “Please call me Dany, if only ever for this evening. And this is not the reason I am sorry. I have not called you here to speak as your ruler, but as a woman.”

“Of course…Dany.” Brienne is aware that the name sounds awkward on her tongue.

“It would be better, perhaps, if you didn’t make it sound like you were chewing a sackful of grain as you said it. But thank you.” She seats herself gracefully on the dry, red stone beneath her, a hand at her hip the whole time. She gestures with her other arm and Brienne follows her, feeling awkward and typically overlarge as she crosses her legs, the floor hard against the bony protuberances of her ankles as she hunches her shoulders, trying not to loom over the small Queen. Her servant comes and sits to one side, placing the little light between them and Brienne waits in silence as the ruler of the known world gazes at her for an age. But then she speaks and her words could not be more shocking. “I know that you love him. That he loves you. I am not blind to it.”

 _She knows_. Brienne can only incline her head strangely, struck dumb with sudden terror.

A small hand reaches out reassuringly. “Do not be afraid, Brienne. You are not married. There are no children. You have both complied with my wishes and have proven yourselves fine examples of how to serve. I respect you a great deal, though my feelings about him are more…complicated.”

“I can understand why,” Brienne whispers, having to force the words from her tightened throat.

“You must know, Brienne,” Daenerys quietly says, “I didn’t ever wish to cause you unhappiness. As a queen, I simply could not be seen to be weak. To allow him to marry and have another family would have been far too forgiving, even under a sentence of banishment. In fact, in some quarters I was still regarded as such for letting him live at all.”

Brienne nods uncertainly.

“You are not entirely unhappy?” the Queen asks.

“No,” Brienne answers, glancing down in surprise as she realizes she is wringing her hands. Her words come with difficulty. “We have found a happiness of our own.”

“I am glad of this,” Daenerys replies with much warmth. Brienne thinks she is being honest. “I did not know, when we all stood in the Throne Room that day, if he would live. In truth, I believe I would rather have had you strike him dead. But having him live was the best choice in the end. He has proven his usefulness.”

Brienne is not made for politics, but a flash of insight hits her and it almost physically rocks her. “To keep us in line. Me. Tyrion.”

The pale-haired woman opposite her appears somewhat sorry, but doesn’t say it. “A Queen, ruling alone, must have a hard heart, Brienne. She does not have to like it. And it may not make her successful.”

This puzzles Brienne. “But you have held the peace for years.”

Daenerys smiles ruefully. “Yet winter is coming and I have failed in my primary role as a woman who rules. I have not secured the succession.” She pauses. “I understand that your knight wishes to visit his aunt?”

Brienne is less surprised than Jaime had been by the Queen’s sudden changing of subjects in the Throne Room, but this still feels like a dance she can never know. “Genna. Yes. At Casterly Rock. I understand she is now unwell.”

“It is a pity. She is a wonderful woman,” Daenerys comments. “She helped to gather information from across the land about fertility for me. Some of it almost worked.”

Brienne frowns. “I am sorry for your pains, Dany,” she says, the name still uncomfortable on her tongue.

“Don’t be,” the Queen smiles. “Fate, it seems, only wanted me to be the mother of dragons.” As if on cue, a roaring rises in the distance, echoing across the rooftops of Flea Bottom from the dragonpit, filling the air, almost making it thick. “Ah, my children.” Her brow furrows a little. “They don’t sound happy this evening.”

Brienne lets her lips form into a faint grin. “Perhaps they want some sheep. They must be terribly expensive around here.”

Daenerys laughs, a light, musical thing. “Not as expensive as ham, which I believe your island has managed to secure as a source of wealth.” She sighs. “Do you ever get bored with people talking about pigs these days? I know I do. What are his plans after Casterly?”

Brienne blinks at yet another change of course in the conversation. “He has none, but his brother is trying to make him go to Winterfell, to meet his nephews.” She grimaces. “In truth, Ser Jaime just wants to go home. As do I. I was in Essos for a very long time and there are things to be done on Tarth.”

Brienne feels foolish, complaining about the burdens of leadership to the ruler of the world, but the Queen just nods understandingly. “Ser Kholo is in charge there?” she asks.

“He will be once he arrives,” Brienne confirms.

“He is good choice,” Daenerys says.

“Yes.”

Violet eyes hold her in silence for a time, as if in serious consideration, but then the Queen sucks in a deep breath. “I would ask you to consider Winterfell, Brienne. If I granted a stay of banishment and Ser Jaime tried to swim back to Tarth inside of four moons, it would look rather odd.”

 _This is curious. “_ An order?”

The Queen shakes her head. “A request. Does Lord Lannister wish to accompany you?”

“He has hinted as much,” Brienne says, smiling a little. “Quite heavily.”

“Let him, should you travel there,” Daenerys quietly offers. “And if you would be so kind, please return him to King’s Landing safely, before you go home.” She pauses, appearing nervous. “I have made a choice of my own.”

It takes Brienne a few, long moments before she can even process the information with which she has been entrusted. As she realizes the true import of the Queen’s words, shock seems to race through her, physical, visceral.

_This cannot be._

_“Tyrion,”_ she breathes unsteadily. “You have named Tyrion Lannister as heir to the Iron Throne?”

Her disbelief must be glaringly obvious because the woman seated in front of her now smiles widely and freely. “Not yet. But I will, when he returns from his next visit home.”

“It…I don’t…I..,” Brienne’s words stutter to a halt, her mind thrown into confusion. For a while, all she can do is gape and notice the increasing chill in the night air. The Queen patiently waits for her to continue. “It doesn’t make any sense. He is so much older than you. Why would you name him? Of all people?”

“He is extremely capable and he only needs to be at Winterfell for half a day for his Lady to produce yet another boy, it would seem.” Daenerys is still smiling and Brienne begins wondering if this is a jest of some sort. But the small ruler’s words don’t stop, to her utter disbelief. “I have sent many of the best tutors north, as recognition of Tyrion’s loyalty and they tell me that the Stark children show real promise, despite their youth. The Throne would be secure and the people safe.”

“Still, it doesn’t make any sense, Dany.” Brienne feels stupid, repeating herself so, but it must be done. “You will surely rule for a long time yet?”

The Queen’s whole demeanour suddenly changes, her features settling into sadness. And fear. “For perhaps ten years,” she says, each word clipped and precise.  “Though our little Lord Lannister will likely be regent for the last two or three...I have the creeping sickness, Brienne.”

“I have not heard of it,” Brienne mutters, only realizing after she has spoken that her words were nearly rudely blunt, hard with apprehension.

Daenerys Targaryen doesn’t seem to notice this, however, simply lifting her left hand, the one Brienne is shocked to suddenly understand has been held in the same position every time she has seen the Queen during this visit, away from its resting place against her. The smaller woman winces in discomfort. “I can no longer feel the tips of my fingers in this hand. They’re numb most of the time. And I can’t move them without pain. The Maesters tell me it will spread, slowly at first, but by the end I will be trapped in my body. Unable to move. Then, one day, I will stop breathing. Living.”

Even the night air seems to still and the only noise is the stifled sobbing of the Queen’s handmaiden. Brienne looks at the golden-eyed woman in sympathy, but finds her gaze being dragged back to a small hand, looking at graceful fingers differently. In open horror.

She struggles to speak. “That’s…awful. I don’t know what to say.” But then she thinks of something, ridiculous though it is. “I…your hand. I have seen other women holding theirs just so. I had thought it  a courtly affectation.”

The Queen gingerly rests her wrist back against her torso and smiles again. “For them, it is. For me, it necessary. Brienne, they don’t yet know they are aping my doom.”

“Will you know? I mean, at the end?” Brienne knows she is not showing the proper decorum now and she doesn’t care.

Daenerys nods.

Suddenly angry, Brienne finds herself becoming fierce. “What are the Maesters doing? There must be something they can do.”

“Everything they can.” Daenerys smiles at her loyal servant, at her golden eyes filled with water, where she sits at their side. “Which mostly seems to involve having Missandei make me drink dreadful potions. Anyway, they tell me it can be slowed, but not stopped.” Her head turns back to Brienne and she finds herself pinned with a ferocious look, all of the Queen’s own. “I need you to know, Brienne. I need you to know because when things become too hard, my dearest Missandei has agreed to help me die. And I don’t want Tyrion to be pressured into having her tried as a Queenslayer. Will you defend her?”

Brienne’s answer is immediate and certain. “There will be no need. She will be safe. This I promise to you both. Truly, Dany.” She reaches out to pat the knee of the woman of the east, she hopes with some measure of comfort, albeit that her attempt feels climsy. “You will come to no harm, Missandei. You can be sure of it. When you have the need for protection, let me know and I will assign my Knight Squire to you both. Sooner, if you would like.”

“A squire?” Missandei asks, unsure.

Brienne smiles at her. “No ordinary squire, my lady. Ser Podrick is a capable warrior and in fact, he often seems to feel that one of his duties is guarding _me_.”

They smile, all three, but then the Queen looks at Brienne strangely. “Would this be Ser Podrick Payne?”

Brienne laughs and blushes a little. “I see even you’ve heard the songs. Don’t worry, Missandei will be perfectly safe with him.” But then she grows concerned. This knowledge cannot only be kept by her. “I must ensure that what you have told me is known, yet safe. Four other people will know on Tarth. But you can be as sure of their secrecy as you are of my own.”

Daenerys frowns. “Will one of them be Ser Jaime?”

“Yes,” Brienne replies. “Please don’t be uncomfortable with it. He would never wish this end on anyone.” She offers a wry half-smile. “And he is very good at keeping secrets.”

“That is so,” the Queen agrees, her lips almost twitching into a grin. Almost.

“Besides,” Brienne continues, with some soft humour, “I think he’ll spend the next few years simply laughing at his brother. You’ll probably be able to hear it, even here. Neither of them ever wanted the throne. Their father always hated that, I’m told.”

Dany leans in, eager for information. “Ah, Tywin Lannister. Was he really as bad as they say?”

“Given your family history, I think you know he was. And I barely knew him, but I was certainly scared of him.”

“You? The fierce, feared Evenstar?” The Queen is laughing now, but without malice. A ringing noise that cuts through the blanket of tension which has smothered them for much of this meeting.

Brienne laughs too and even Missandei, normally so withdrawn except in her official duties, is starting to grin. “Absolutely. Actually, I think it’s a touch poetic that the son he loathed will take the throne,” Brienne says, before she is hit by another wave of almost dizzying amazement. “I can hardly believe it. A _Lannister_?”

The Queen glances at Missandei. They share a smile, as if trading a secret joke, before Brienne gets her answer. “Only one Lannister, an old lion, and then his trueborn offspring, all of whom are…”

“Starks,” Brienne nearly shouts, looking at the holder of the Iron Throne in wonder. “Did you order their naming?”

“No, but I encouraged it, long before I became ill. The Stark name brings respect, even now. I had always hoped for them to remain the Guardians of the North at least.” Daenerys Targaryen seems more relaxed in mere moments, almost self-satisfied as she looks at the Evenstar. But then her eyes narrow, even as her lips tilt upwards into a grin. “I did seriously consider _you_ , you know.”

Brienne almost physically chokes on the thought. “Then thank you for forbidding me to wed and have children. Can you imagine the minstrels tying themselves into knots, trying to compose songs about my great beauty?”

The women talk more and with greater ease.

/-/-/-/-/

 “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Pod huffs as the words, which are so often privately heard from the Evenstar, fall from the lips of the First Knight of Tarth instead. He agrees, but says nothing, his own mind struggling to grasp the news.

“It’s true, Ser Jaime.” The Lady is wary and stern as she regards her love, whose skin has turned almost unnaturally ashen at her quietly spoken words. “She is dying. Slowly, yes, but dying nonetheless. And he, or his children, _will_ succeed her…”

She turns her head as a servant walks out into the yard, looking at him without a sound, simply waiting whilst her unspoken suggestion of departure fills the air about them. The young man’s footsteps lengthen and become swift, taking him across the cobbles and out of the gate. It is not the first interruption they’ve had, but it is better to be out in the open, where any ears that might listen will be plainly seen. Even Ser Jaime refuses to claim knowledge of all of the secret places that are hidden inside the Red Keep.

Brienne’s eyes sweep around them, looking for movement, and then she explains further, her voice flat and hushed in the evening air. “He doesn’t know yet. She doesn’t want him to. She needs his reaction to the announcement to be unquestionably genuine. But she approves of his visiting Winterfell first. It may be his last chance for a long time. Within a few years her symptoms will advance and he will be needed here.”

Their little group falls into silence and Pod watches as Ser Jaime struggles with the very idea that his brother may one day sit on the Iron Throne. He alternates between a quiet lack of understanding, written on his face with a clenched jaw, and low chuckles of disbelief. Two more people pass through the yard, but no one tarries to hear them. In the end, Ser Jaime speaks again with a sigh. “And she wants us to take him.” His fingers worry at the laces on his leather vambrace. “I have to say, my Lady, I’m not feeling terribly unbanished, all told.” The Winter Knight, as he is now apparently known, shakes his head, as if still trying to grasp all of this.

Pod watches his Ser Lady break out into a smile. “You didn’t want to be, in any case.”

“True,” Ser Jaime flashes a grin, but then worry settles over him, the wrinkles in his brow becoming more pronounced. “I didn’t want this though, Brienne. I want no part of this game, for either of us.”

“Do we have any choice?” she says bluntly. “If we are to avoid a war of succession then your brother must be protected.”

Worry drops into a grimace on the face of the older knight. “And if we are to protect him, we have to protect the one who will name him.”

“Yes. Now, more than ever. Her position will weaken further, given time.”

Ser Jaime looks upwards and nods slightly, his face framed in mild concern and perhaps even sympathy. But then he shifts his eyes back to the Evenstar. “So we must follow her _every_ command?”

“Yes.” Ser Brienne starts scuffing at an uneven cobble with the toe of her boot, appearing suddenly uncomfortable. “At least here.”

Ser Jaime leans in to almost grasp her lowered gaze with his own. “She _knows_?” Brienne inclines her head warily. “And she isn’t going to kill us?”

The Lady nods and quietly mutters, “No wedding. No children. We’ve held to that. She told me that anything else we have is not her concern.”

At this reprieve, Pod half expects Ser Jaime to be relieved, but instead anger rolls across his face, though his voice remains lowered. “Then why are we indulging her in this charade?”

“Her power is already on the wane and she needs a show of it, Jaime. Preferably a bloodless one.”

Pod understands, but does not like it. And neither does Ser Jaime. His answer is a ragged whisper. “So to protect _them_ we get to dance around Westeros, still obeying a years old command that even she doesn’t even really care about, whilst I get to be aged, unheroic and parted from _you_? Again?”

The Evenstar nods solemnly.

The older knight is bullish in response, stepping in to the woman he loves, nearly glaring at her.  “I want to go home.”

“We can’t do that just yet.” There is nothing but peace and kindness and need in her as she looks at him. “You know that as well as I do.”

“It doesn’t stop me wanting,” Ser Jaime spits, turning and walking away so he can slump dramatically onto a low stone sill, dropping his head into his lone hand.

Brienne of Tarth does not react as Pod thinks she will. She starts laughing and it is only when she covers her mouth with the back of her hand that Pod notices her knight is grinning wryly behind his own fingers. “Why is this funny?”

His Ser Lady answers him. “When Ser Jaime was first my prisoner, he tended to sit down at the side of the road occasionally, like a sulking child.” Pod grins at this. “He didn’t think I could move him,” Brienne continues, “but I almost always managed to drag him along with me somehow.”

Ser Jaime’s hand falls away from his face and he smiles. “Even when I refused to walk, she’d get me moving eventually. It was very disconcerting. And muddy, if I recall.” He stands and walks back to them, lowering his voice once more. “Will we make it back in time?”

Brienne nods. “If we can cover five leagues a day, we should, with time to spare. I’ll make sure a ship is waiting here, just in case we can’t get back to Storm’s End before your nameday.” Pod watches her mouth twist with concern. “Though your brother will slow us.”

Ser Jaime shrugs. “Then he’ll have to learn to travel light. How many are in the standard Lannister guard, these days?”

“Still a hundred,” is the reply.

“I’ll talk him down to fifty.”

The old knight makes to leave, but The Evenstar grasps his upper arm firmly. “Jaime. He _can’t_ know.”

Green eyes fly to blue in concern. “He'll be aware we’re hiding something, Brienne.”

She shrugs. “Do you think he will be able to guess at _this_?” Pod takes in the view of the Kingslayer himself shaking his head in absolute denial. No matter how clever Lord Tyrion Lannister is, there is nobody here who can imagine him forseeing this turn of events. “Then we simply refuse to tell him.”

Ser Jaime almost snorts at this. “He’s going to hate that. Oh, and being unbanished is terribly boring, my Lady Evenstar. I just thought I should say.” He shakes his arm free from the ruler of Tarth and heads off to find his brother, to confirm their imminent journey.

They watch him go, but then Pod turns to the woman who has formed so much of him, for the better, he thinks. She does nothing without reason, yet he has seen no purpose for his presence here yet. “Why am I here, Ser Lady?”

She flicks a large hand out and pulls the longer locks of his hair back from his forehead, as if she wants to see his whole face in this moment, and he cannot bear to stop her. “We are warriors, Pod. Our survival is never certain, so five of us will know. You, me, Ser Jaime, Kholo and Charro. And you need to know, most of all. As her end draws near, you will be here to protect the Queen, and her handmaiden. I have sworn that no harm will come to Missandei, even if she eases the Queen’s passing. It will be your place to ensure it.” She pauses, clearly concerned for him. “Do you understand me?”

He does. They both look up at the balcony. Two pairs of eyes, one violet, one golden, look down, regarding him curiously. Pod keeps his gaze open and honest. He simply nods at the two women who will become his charges, in a time yet to come. His path has just altered, but although he will miss his Ser Lady and Ser Jaime in particular, as well as his home on Tarth, his primary oath is to the holder of the Iron Throne. He swore that if the Dragon Warriors were called, he would answer. He has been.

And so it will be.

/-/-/-/-/

They lean against the battlements, looking down at the gathering body of troops. Lannister red is everywhere, a whirl of ostentatious banners and livery. At Jaime’s request, only a small group of seven blue cloaks are waiting patiently at the head of the party, the rest having either been garrisoned here or sent back to Tarth. Brienne glances to her right, at the beloved features of her nearly husband. “We should probably get down there soon.”

Jaime doesn’t look at her, but a half-smile plays over his lips as his fingers curl around hers, unseen between them underneath their cloaks, hidden from the wider world behind thick stone.  “I’ll think of you in the Hour of the Nightingale.”

_The time when we are often closest._

“You do like to wake early,” she says, made fully aware that he can still make her flush red, seemingly at will, the merest undertone in his voice suggesting what he might be doing then seeing heat race through her.

“I’ve never heard you complain.”

She rubs her thumb along the side of his hand, feeling the familiar thickness of the skin where his palm wraps around his sword. She has never taken the sensation of their work-roughened hands touching for granted. And certainly not today. Especially today. “I’ll miss you, Jaime.”

Green eyes catch her and hold her, for just a moment. “I’ll miss you too, Brienne. But I’ll be at your side.” He looks downward again and groans, clearly taking in the sight of Lord Tyrion Lannister wriggling unhappily in his personally designed saddle. “We really should go. We haven’t even left King’s Landing yet and it would appear my brother is already about to complain about his vast levels of discomfort.”

Brienne grins. “Have I ever told you I find him inconvenient?”

Jaime gazes at her slyly. “We could just throw him into Blackwater Bay and be done with the whole thing.” He chuckles. “Then we could go home.”

Brienne pretends to consider it. “A tempting offer, but even after all these years, I still like your head where it is.”

He smiles. “That’s good to know.” But then he falls suddenly serious. “Are you ready, wench?”

“Oh, I’m ready, Jaime.”

Her words are flat and his response is instant. Sad. “You are still a terrible liar, Brienne.”

She pretends to glare at him. “True. But we are masters of waiting, Jaime. And it’s less than a year.” She purposely phrases the end of her statement almost as a challenge. “I can do it if you can.”

She can hear the low laugh rumbling in his chest. “I think we both know I’m strong enough.” He tilts his head down in the direction of the yard. “Should we?”

“You first,” she says quietly.

They spend a few more precious moments simply feeling the weight of each other’s hands, fingers running over and memorizing the feel of dearest skin.

Then together, they pull apart.

But instead of just walking away, he smiles at her in a way that tugs at her, deep inside. “You should be told,” he says. “If we make it back to the Tarth in time for my nameday, I don’t plan on leaving our chambers for any of it.”

She laughs softly. “Then we are of like mind.” She allows her face to become unnecessarily, mockingly stern. “Now go and get on your horse, Ser. And do try to look decrepit.”

“To help prevent an outbreak of war and protect the exceedingly irritating heir to the Throne? Why of course, my Lady Evenstar.” Sharp, green eyes turn from her and she hears his bootsteps, disconcertingly gentle paddings on stone in their parting as he makes his way away from her, while she turns her attention to the assembling host below.

There is some shouting rising up. People jostle as they try to find their way to their mounts, or say goodbye to loved ones, or even just keep a hold of their own personal belongings in the closely milling mass of near confusion below.

_We really do have to go._

Horses are becoming too tightly packed in the courtyard and she looks down the little alleys that lead away to various stablings, seeing people and animals becoming numerous there too.

A movement in blue catches her eye, off to her right.

_He ran down those stairs, damn him._

She knows he will play his part in this ridiculous journey, but she is unsurprised that he might just want to make a point, before they depart. She watches Jaime elbow his way through the throng to his horse, taking the reins from Pod and mounting with more grace than many a man half his age, a long leg flying over a dark flank with ease, his shoulders shaking with laughter as he settles comfortably into his saddle. She can almost hear him.

_Call me old, will they, wench?_

_Not I,_ she thinks, her feet following his. _Never, Jaime._

Within minutes, they are on the road.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be called 'The Defender of Tarth'. It might even be there already.


	15. The Defender of Tarth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   
>  Banner by [Ro Nordmann](http://ro-little-shop-of-wonders.tumblr.com)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I must express my thanks to dear Roseheart and Nurdles.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own it not.

 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THE DEFENDER OF TARTH

 

He is no fool.

He does not think her a beauty, not as so many others are. He has fucked enough of them to know the difference.

Yet she will always be beautiful to him.

The first time he’d seen her, it had been at a distance. He was in the guard that went to meet the infamous Kingslayer and his whore, when they were both in chains. He didn’t quite understand then, what those names meant or even why they were prisoners. He had heard that they were glorious, points of light in the darkest of wars, when the sun was too struck by grief to even bother waking, weary with the sadnesses of men, unable to rise above the ice which blanketed the world.

But he was barely full-grown at the time and he did not know. He did not know anything.

This place was all too new to him.

He had followed the Khaleesi, the Mother of Dragons, across the poisoned water to seek glory. There had been little enough for him in his khalasar, being the youngest and smallest of four sons, skilled with the arakh but lacking the size and strength to become a bloodrider, as had his brothers. He wanted to be a true warrior and thought that by joining the ranks of the Dragon Queen, he could make himself better. It was not until they travelled that he became larger, though too late for him to return to his home and fight for a proper place in a khas.

His bones were still aching with the last of his growth when, with the half-man, they met a motley group on what he had learned was called the Kingsroad. It was a name which made no sense to him, for this place had no king. But then, little else made sense in this strange land.

As one of the younger of those in his group, he had been sent to the rear of the column, to hurry stragglers along. He had hardly noticed the small collection of chained ones as he passed them by, but once they had taken their position, his attention was called by Chirako, the man at his side, who sneered and pointed. “They say it is a woman.”

Looking forward, Kholo saw the back of a huge figure with pale hair being called by the Lannister and an old prisoner with one hand. If it was a woman, she was chained and did not seem afraid, her stride firm and certain. She was offered a horse and mounted with the ease of one used to them. Chirako muttered something to his left in sympathy for the animal, but Kholo did not note it as they began to move.

But then they stopped and the dwarf Lord and the one-handed man rode away with a small escort. “He does not look so fierce,” Chirako said, watching the departing prisoner. At Kholo’s obvious confusion, he laughed. “That is the _Kingslayer_.” Then he looked ahead and grinned viciously. “And they call her the Maid of Tarth.”

 _These people have so many names._ “I thought she was called his whore?”

“I sometimes forget your youth,” Chirako grinned, slapping him happily on the shoulder. “But anyway, who would fuck that?” They watched as one of their brothers moved his horse closer to the big woman, too close, trying to intimidate her.

It didn’t work. The pale head turned and Kholo caught a glimpse of scarring on her neck and face, and a steady, blue gaze.

_She has been marked much by war, yet there is no fear in her._

A number of his brethren tried to unsettle this Maid, but their attempts were only met with a slowly swinging head and a dignified, unthreatened regard, moving to the challenges and meeting them. By the time the Westerosi men returned, even Chirako sounded almost impressed. “She is unarmed and still hard to scare.”

“She isn’t unarmed,” Kholo replied. “She has chains.”

Chirako grinned. “Against an arakh? No chance.”

Kholo wasn’t so sure as the Kingslayer settled his horse in beside the Maid and they all began to head along the road again.

He noted the prisoners no more as they made their way back to King’s Landing, kept busy by having to urge some of the slower soldiers along, sometimes with the sole of his boot. When they reached the city, he had one last glimpse of the large woman as they clattered through the gates, before he, with his Dothraki brothers, peeled away from the column to graze and rest their horses in the nearby fields.

He did not really think of her much anymore, for as a prisoner of the Queen, the Maid of Tarth would surely burn and he would not see her again.

Kholo was wrong.

Only two days later, he was passing by the practice yards where the Westerosi men liked to fight in their foolish metal. He was called over to the fences by Chirako. “Tarth is fighting, Kholo!” Kholo smiled at his fellow warrior as he thought of how his friend’s insults about the Maid had changed as the stories of her fearlessness grew amongst their number. Tales and songs from the war of ice and snow had been discussed as they ate and rode. Now she was almost admired amongst his people, even if her future seemed bleak.

Kholo stepped to his friend’s side, looked at the two people locked in combat, and everything was changed for him. Forever.

The Maid of Tarth was straining against a man close to her own size. Sweat was pouring from her brow and her skin was red as she grimaced in her effort. Scars stood livid on her skin, on her hands, her face and neck, but Kholo was blind to everything other than knowing that this woman was war, itself.

A shock ran through him, one he could feel in his suddenly shaking fingers, as the beauty of pure will and force were laid bare before him. Everything was stripped away from her, all of the airs of women, or even of men, just gone away. She had reforged herself, from the Maid he had heard being laughed at, into sheer survival made flesh. It clutched at his chest, making him reel inside.

He looked at her. He couldn’t stop looking at her. He saw her skill. He saw her strength. He saw her eyes, bright with determination as she spun away and sliced out with her blade, as a low, yet truly womanly cry escaped her.

And he loved her.Immediately. Wholeheartedly. Without question. The course of his life was altered in a moment. He would follow her to the world’s end, should she ask it, if only to gain the merest chance to stand at her side.

The rest of the bout was a daze to him, a blurring of shining swords and blue, ending with her retreating into an odd timidity once the fighting was done, as his friends called out her name.

That night, he spent the last of the coin he had having his two arakhs, his only items of worth in the world, blunted and polished, so he could face her.

It was worth it just to hear his name on her lips, her forehead furrowing as she softly intoned it.

 _Badly,_ Kholo recalls with a smile, whilst he checks his stallion’s ears for ticks as it feeds on long grass, in a field by the side of the road to Storm’s End. The horse whickers unhappily, but lets the handling occur. Kholo chuckles and lets his mind fall back into memory.

He’d called on the fighting spirit always so obvious in his brothers that day, one that he had believed he lacked and yet finally found in that moment. It did not help, for the Tarthian was glorious, even with an unfamiliar blade.

And it was not the last time they fought, in that strange city, so far away from the Great Grass Sea.

Every day, she would be in the practice yards and he would go to meet her, a barely man who, she said, learned very quickly, swelling his young heart with pride and more warmth for her.

“I could not beat her then,” he says amiably to his horse as he leads it to the nearby stream. The horse does not reply and nor does he drink. Kholo sighs at the beast and crouches down to fill his waterskins.

_How I loved her._

And he had. She was kind, so very kind, he quickly learned, and shy like a girl of his own age instead of one marked by years of conflict. But strong, truly remarkable with a blade in her hand.  The map of her past pains, on her skin, flowed over muscle like strange silk, more beautiful than any of the soft dresses the other women wore.

Even all these years later, Kholo still regards this as his happiest time. When he had longed to be strong enough to take her, to learn and grow into a man this woman could love, if only he could earn it. If.

It did not last.

Because after only four days of soaring and hope and feeling, when he thought he could finally see the sky in all of its wholeness and beauty, he realised that she had already found the sun, when a crippled knight walked out onto the damp, dirty sand to challenge her. Love beyond his understanding had been writ large, with flying metal and cold words, as if in flames across the sky, so bright it made his own feelings seem childish and small. Though the Queen had forbidden them to wed, a blind man would see that the Maid of Tarth and the one-handed warrior were utterly bonded.

Kholo had tried to hate the man they called Kingslayer, even as the seasoned warrior lay in the dirt that day, laughing and clutching at his bleeding nose. He could not. He was as stunned as Ser Jaime of Tarth, but Kholo already knew that there were some forces that couldn’t be fought, though it wounded him sharply inside. Besides, none of it mattered. His course was already set. The Maid of Tarth was now the Evenstar, maker of Dragon Warriors. And he would follow her. If she could not love him, he could at least learn how best to fight at her side. Having been banished, Ser Jaime would be unable to protect the woman he loved when she left for battle. Kholo would do it for him.

So he did.

A foul journey across yet more poisoned water, during which the Kingslayer offered him kindness that he hadn’t then been willing to accept from the man who had taken his joy long before Kholo knew it, had seen him to his new home. And quickly, despite his own pain, he began to notice theirs. It was vast, their very nearness in itself a cause of distress to them. Even as they worked until they bled, side by side in ditches and rubble, there was distance between them.

They were together, but apart.

At first, Kholo had been pleased at this. If he had not claimed her yet, in all of the years they had fought side by side, why should the Kingslayer have the Maid? Within days, he saw the Evenstar fashion protection for the old man’s weeping stump from the leather of her own childhood saddle and he burned inside, angry at her gesture. Though he admired the fact that the knight wouldn’t let the lack of a hand stop him working as hard as everyone else, he raged at the intimacy of it.

But then their unhappiness flew past, above his, as he watched the one-handed man pace outside his tent, next to hers, deep in the dark of night after night, when she cried out in terror and he was unable to go to her, his head rolling and shoulders shaking in bleak agony at the sound.

After some evenings watching this, Kholo put his own hurt aside and sat with him under the starlit sky. Ser Jaime had spoken to him in words that he didn’t yet understand, talking his way through the Lady’s pain, his head bowing and his voice becoming rough, dropping into silence only when her cries were loudest. Kholo doesn’t remember all of the things the Kingslayer said back then, for he has always talked a lot, but he carries snatches of them, even now.

_‘She was life itself at the Wall, Kholo. Brutal. So beautiful.’_

_‘I can’t bear this.’_

_‘She has taught me so much.’_

_‘I have never known anyone like her. Anyone so good.’_

_‘I would be dead without her.’_

_‘She fills my mind.’_

_‘How are we to do this?’_

The tone these words came forth in was enough. Kholo didn’t have to perceive them to know that this man was worthy of this woman, for all that his own mind screamed in want. He had already seen that they were bound in flesh as much as any pair he’d ever seen, the markings on their skin making it clear that they truly stood together in the darkness, scouring and cutting them as if they had been caught in the very centre of a sandstorm.

And Ser Jaime’s grief was so very real.

A true friendship began by firelight and silently, Kholo fully chose to stand aside within himself, without anybody ever having known it was needed.

Except Lolla.

The old woman is very clever and she saw what nobody else did. Yet she never said anything, only occasionally coming to hug him when she felt it was needed, or making him lean down so she could squeeze the sides of his face in a gesture that was puzzling to him. It was enough.

He gained his cloak very quickly, more swiftly than he could have hoped, mere moons having passed since his arrival at his new home. He thought that perhaps it was done out of pity. It didn’t matter. For a fortnight, he would not part from it at all, sleeping wrapped in the blue of the Evenstar’s eyes, determined that he would become the very best of them. For her. For them all.

She entrusted him with passing on his skills, as scant as he thought they were, and his muscles, his whole body hurt all of the time in his efforts not to disappoint her. The days became longer, the sun accompanying him in his ever increasing work.

Those first years on the island were hard on everyone. Much had to be built before it could be used, but Kholo didn’t mind. For all that he didn’t quite feel the need for such sturdy, immovable places to live in, it made him stronger. Alongside the forms of training that began on Tarth, he realized that he was becoming as good as his brothers. Perhaps, the best of them all. He honed himself, in body and mind, and became sharp, a weapon himself, even without a blade.

When the fortress above was rebuilt, he could not find the will to move into the chamber he was offered there. Better that he stayed away. Besides, he had been named Master of Horse and they were his duty, too. His duty to the Iron Throne. His duty to Tarth. His duty to the woman who would always shine like sunrise to him.

Sometimes they sparred, and these were the times he lived for. When their bodies would meet, their blades clashing, and he could feel the might of her strength, her determination wound tight, drawn in, then released into the thin shards of metal that came at him without mercy, knowing that she could hurt him, but trusting him to stop her. It is the same, even now. It is a sign of her regard that she does so, and he holds it close to him, as he ever has.

Kholo’s horse has finally taken some water and is looking at him placidly. He tugs slightly on the reins and the animal turns. He starts to lead it back up towards the road.

He thinks back to the Riverlands. At the blinding rage which ran hot through his blood when the Evenstar told him of her maiming as they rode towards conflict. He has never told her that he crept out of camp that night and made his way back to the inn, making sure that nobody responsible for it still lived there. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t trust her word. He simply didn’t trust her capacity for kindness. Either way, she was right.

And he was soon to find out that she could put her softness aside. As their first skirmishes together showed him. Whether on warhorse or afoot, she was mighty. Unstoppable. She left blood in her wake and she killed swiftly, if she could, which was to be admired.

Yet as soon as she cleaned and stowed Oathkeeper away, he could see that, hidden underneath her stern orders, the pure warrior was gone and the gentle woman, the Maid, was left behind.

Never more so than when she’d found him celebrating the night after their only proper engagement there. Her gaze had gripped the mud near her feet as she asked him about the horses, her eyes wide but lowered, her skin bright with blood, even in low firelight. He had been brief, to the point, and the Evenstar had stalked away in moments, her long legs eager to take her to the safety of her tent. For all that he had long since given up hope, that alone inflamed him. He found his mind startlingly full of the Maid of Tarth, still in her armour, softly kicking a tent peg, even as he fucked the young ladies who kept him company that night, though they were both most pleasing.

Things were different by the time of Essos. The Evenstar sat alone with him one night by a small fire, listening to his quietly muttered words of confusion as he felt bereft by the awareness that his childhood home now felt strange to him. It was no longer his home. She wrapped her long fingers over his wrist as he struggled to speak, unable to properly voice his grief that the smells of his youth were no longer right, that the sharp, cutting feel of the blades of grass in the Dothraki Sea was no longer welcome to him. That this was _not_ home. That it hadn’t been home for a very long time. She’d leaned in towards him, with nothing but feeling. “You are of the Dothraki, of Essos, Kholo. But you are also Tarthian.” And then she smiled. Kholo came close to crying, yet did not. The warmth of her large, strong fingers on his skin could turn the very tides, or so it seemed to him.

The next day, they rode into battle and found victory. It was well won, but not an even fight, and the unhappiness of that sat on them like a heavy burden as they went to meet the Ambassador, lightened only by the moments when they laughed at Pod.

The Evenstar is not so shy now and for all that he would take her in a moment, if only she would want him to, he believes that she and Ser Jaime have found joy at last. It does not make him bitter. He is happy for them. They both deserve it. Though if one is his brother-knight, his true friend, it is the other who will ever hold his devotion.

The kindness of the Lady Brienne of Tarth has lit his whole life as a man, changing him for the better. From the very beginning, she’d cared for him, as she did for everyone. Yet she had taken extra time to help Kholo settle on her island, grateful for his challenge to her in King’s Landing, aware of his youth and the bravery it took for him to choose to even face her, risking the shame of defeat to a woman amongst his own people.

For hours, days, she sat with him, teaching him the Common Tongue, with such patience and care as he did not warrant then, barely more than a boy still shocked by the change in life here. Away from all he once knew, finding food suddenly more abundant yet strange, water everywhere and everything else so vastly different. She had persevered with Kholo, sometimes sitting with him in the middle of the night, exhausted by her duties, weary in her metal, her voice rough as she battled with his lack of understanding. Yet she did not stop.

He still can’t write anything other than his own name, for all of her efforts with him, but Kholo’s grasp of speaking the Westerosi language now exceeds some of those born to it, or so she once told him. If others decide to believe that he fails to discern much just because words do not spill from his mouth like feed from a tipped nosebag, it is to his advantage and he doesn’t bother to correct them.

He sometimes thinks in Dothraki now, but the sound of the words of his childhood are jarring in his head. He thinks in the Common Tongue far more often, as he has chosen to for years. For then, the voice he hears inside him is one he can carry with him everywhere. It is hers. His teacher. His love that was never to be.

His sister-knight.

Inavva.

He calls her sister, though he loves her still. It is a gentler thing now, though, not full of the hurt of earlier years and if he can only ever have her as such, it does not make him unhappy. He doesn’t lack for affection. There are willing women enough for him on Tarth and after battle.

Kholo grins as he mounts his horse to continue his journey home, thinking that his fate is not so unfortunate _. I have made love to many, but loved only one._

He will never tell her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be called 'The Road'. It will be added on Saturday, June 14th. Thank you kindly for your patience.


	16. The Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> REPOST. The war is over. Some of them hadn’t thought that they would outlive it. And yet...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the delay in the posting of this chapter. It is my hope that future waits will not be as long. Thank you so much for your patience, should you still be reading. It is very much appreciated. Have a biscuit. :)
> 
> My warmest words, as ever, must go to my beta RoseHeart for her patience and for simply putting up with me. She is wonderful. And a nod must also go to Nurdles, for her constant support.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own it not.

 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: THE ROAD

 

Jaime comes upon them a short way from the camp. Brienne is crouched in front of his brother and there is no small amount of glaring going on. Their words are quiet, but sharp and furious.

“…have died, Tyrion!”

“How many times do I have to tell you, Brienne? I would not risk my wife and I will not risk my children. I couldn’t count on you to defend them, if I were found out. You know this. Winterfell is simply too far away.” As Jaime leans against a nearby trunk,Tyrion drops the finger he is waving right in front of the Evenstar’s nose, not at all aware he is putting it in danger by doing so. He knows they have seen him, but they don’t note it. His brother just sighs and scratches his chin as he stares at Brienne’s wildly unfriendly scowl. “Can we get past this?”

She pauses, but then gives a short nod. “Yes, but I’m still angry with you.” Brienne’s gaze falls to leaf-litter on the woodland floor for a few moments, deeply thoughtful, before looking up again. “You say he is dead. Surely there have been letters? Anything to confirm that he still lives?”

Tyrion rolls his eyes, clearly astonished at her naiveté. “If you rip out the fingernails on the hand a man isn’t using to write, he’ll still scribble out as many letters as you ask him too, I’d guess, if he is fed a lie about the hope of living.”

“Would the Queen have any part of this?” Brienne’s question feels urgent. It is plain to see the thought of this troubles her.

Tyrion snorts. “How much have you heard about what she did in Essos? She had more than a hundred slavers nailed to wooden posts before she even had a throne to protect.”

“They were slavers,” Brienne mutters stubbornly, unhappy at the honesty in his words.

“She has brought stability, Brienne,” Tyrion says with utter certainty, “but never doubt for a moment that our fair queen will do whatever she needs to, if she believes the end is right.”

An uneasy silence falls between them as loyalty and truth war across the face of the Evenstar. Jaime decides to distract her with a question of his own. “Why would you put Kholo in charge of Tarth when he has done this to us?”

Brienne looks at him in clear surprise. “Kholo?” She shakes her head firmly. “No, Jaime. It could never be Kholo.”

Jaime feels a touch cut by her absolute faith in her Master of Horse, but he keeps it inside. "Why?"

"He can barely write his own name," Brienne says with quiet assurance. "It’s Kyron, Jaime. It’s always been Kyron. Since before we arrived on Tarth. Before we even knew you would live."

"Kyron?" Jaime knows his voice now sounds a touch strangled. Kholo he could've understood. After all, he had travelled all the way from his homeland in the ranks of the Mother of Dragons. But that Kyron, of all people, had been deceiving them for so long hurts.

_We entrusted him with those newest to us._

Where he is left reeling, Brienne is by now, at least, calm. She rises smoothly to her feet. "He has been at every single testing throughout the years, Jaime. And your dear brother even introduced me to him." She looks down into the wary face of Tyrion and her voice hardens. "Why don’t you tell him about that?"

Green eyes swing to him. "Ser Kyron’s wife, the Lady Aryena, is…"

"Lovely," Jaime bites. "Some might say charming. Lowborn. Has an extraordinarily beautiful singing voice. Very skilled at weaving. I _know_ her, Tyrion. Go on."

His sibling shuffles his feet uneasily in the leaf mulch before complying. "She had one brother."

"Had?" Jaime asks. "I’m assuming he’s the one with the pulled fingernails?"

Tyrion nods. "He was a guard at the Mud Gate by the time the war ended. And not a good one, by all accounts."

"There were no good guards left in King’s Landing by the end of the war, Tyrion. They were dead. I killed some of them myself, truth be told." He raises an eyebrow and points at Brienne's hand, resting lightly as it is on the hilt of Oathkeeper. "So did she, by the way."

If Tyrion feels threatened, he refuses to show it. "He was particularly bad. A troublemaker."

"I like the sound of him."

Both Tyrion and Brienne look at him in exasperation and he shrugs. Tyrion continues. "From what I gather, his time in this position was about to grow far shorter, along with his life expectancy. Kyron and his wife knew this. It only takes one bad egg to stink out a family home, yet they loved him, nonetheless."

"Their weakness," Jaime states. "A trade. Information for his safety."

Brienne interrupts, still hurt at his brother's actions, it is clear. She trusts wholly so rarely and he knows she had thought Tyrion almost as a brother of her own. "Was he even still alive when I met Kyron?"

Tyrion shakes his head sadly. "I don’t think so. Though I can’t be sure. I tried to get the Queen’s handmaiden to tell me, but she is a remarkably sharp one." His tone turns curious. "I wonder how much she knows?"

Brienne quietly answers him. "I think everything, but it doesn’t matter, Tyrion. Missandei would never tell us."

Jaime takes in the sight of his brother, the cleverest man he has ever met, looking slightly confused. It makes him bark in sudden laughter, though without malice. At their strange looks, he shrugs. "You make for a useless Spider, little brother." He paces over to Brienne, making sure that he stands neither to close nor too far away. "So, my Lady Evenstar, what do we do about Kyron?"

Brienne falls into a troubled silence for a while, her head dropping, her mouth twisting into a frown and her gaze pinned somewhere about his feet. When she finally lifts her head, swallowing convulsively, she is sad, yet certain. "We tell him he has been deceiving us for a lie. Then, nothing."

"Nothing?" Jaime hisses.

"We are both still alive," Brienne answers him, quick as a whip, all doubt gone. "If he was planted to observe me, or us, he clearly only ever said little. If he meant us ill, we would have long since been dead, no matter how careful we’ve been. He has otherwise served our House well." She pauses, her nostrils flaring. "We can’t condemn a man for the things he will do for those he loves, can we?"

"But…"

"But…"

The brothers glance at each other, grinning at having begun to speak at the same moment. Their eyes say the same thing too. _Yes. We can._ They know it better than most. But they both look back at the Evenstar to see her jaw set, her decision made. They will not change it.

Tyrion huffs. "Perhaps the Lady Evenstar is right, Jaime. You are very much alive."

"Yes. Quite." Jaime smiles at them both. "Why ‘blessed’ as your word of faith, Brienne?"

Brienne softens at the mention of Kyron's codeword. "There was a band of mummers who came to Tarth once. One of them was this loud, bearded man…"

"Bryn the Blessed?" Tyrion almost shouts the name, full of enthusiasm. "He came to Casterly once, when he was old. _Mormont’s alive!"_ His quite accurate impression makes them all laugh a little, before Jaime is hit with the certain knowledge of something.

"I think I know what my word is." He doesn't even have to say it.

_Sapphires._

Brienne bites her lip slightly and her gaze skitters away as a soft flush races over her. But then she sighs and looks at him again, pretending to be annoyed. "I think I'll have to change it now." Her attention shifts to his brother, who is clearly bursting to know what this precious word is and quells his thirst for knowledge in moments. "In the meantime, I’m hungry and want to get some dinner, before it has all fallen into the stomachs of useless Lannister guardsmen. One day, Tyrion. It has been just one day and I’ve already had enough of their whining. How is your saddle, by the way?" she sniffs.

Tyrion frowns at her unhappily. "Terrible."

With a nondescript huff, the Evenstar strides back towards the camp proper, her point having been made, leaving the brothers alone.

Tyrion gazes after her as her long legs swiftly take her away, before he grins up at Jaime. "I like her when she’s angry."

A number of images spring into his head, but he can't really share them, so Jaime replies simply. "So do I, brother."

/-/-/-/-/

Jaime is ineptly fiddling in his pack, scowling at his inability to find his misplaced dagger, when his fingers touch something new. A stray scrap of very soft leather seems to have found its way into his things. He pulls it out and stares at it, wondering why the small roll would appear there. It is tied with a simple half-hitch and he can loosen the knot with just his thumb and similarly flatten it out onto the flat of his palm with his curled fingertips.

Inside, there is a tiny scrap of paper. Whilst the little leather pouch appears to have been designed for him, neat and usable with his lone hand, the paper is torn, as if from the corner of another document. He hasn’t written anything in years, yet the small, neat script that meets him is as better known to him than his own. It is hers.

_I miss you._

His breath catches. It has been so long since home already and they still have so far to go. He gazes at these three words and lets them fill him and warm him in the chill morning air. He starts to roll the leather back, hiding the precious note from any prying eyes and using his teeth to tie it closed. With great care he winnows it back into the bottom of his pack and moves to check his saddle is secure. It remains a task he finds hard but as he fumbles like a fool, he notices Brienne step up to her own horse nearby. For a moment, he smiles at her as if they were alone. And for just another heartbeat, Brienne, not the Evenstar, smiles back. Not wholly. She can’t. But she peeks from behind the curtain that has shrouded her since Tarth and it is enough. Then, in tandem, their heads fall to their own tasks and he misses her.

/-/-/-/-/

They stand in the trees some way back from the little campfire, the three of them just watching as the Evenstar and Ser Jaime sit next to each other, not so close as to be considered too familiar, but not far apart as they eat from their bowls.

The Lady Brienne grins at something her knight has said; only to swiftly reply, eliciting a groan of mock outrage from her companion. Then they are both smiling, nudging elbows playfully as their large frames begin to shake with laughter.

“It is difficult,” Myrcella says, next to him. Pod looks at her inquiringly as Anara reaches out to hold her hand. “I’m so happy for them, but it hurts to know that my mother was right.”

“What do you mean?” Pod asks, instantly on the defensive. He knew Cersei Baratheon well enough and he can’t help himself.

“She used to write to me, in Dorne. When news of my…parentage came out, she told me of how the Maid of Tarth had stolen Jaime from her. From us all. She said she was his whore.”

Pod clenches his fists at his sides and speaks through gritted teeth, his mind almost blank with a sudden fury. “Never call her that. Never. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The anger he is struggling so hard to contain must be obvious because Anara steps in closer to her, protectively, and Myrcella looks at him, her eyes wide. “Was it not so?” she asks, almost timidly.

“No,” he grinds out. “They’ve known each other since before she was twenty and they denied each other for year after year. It was bloody inhuman. It almost tore them both to pieces and it was heart-breaking to watch. Never call her a whore again, Myrie. Just don’t. Fair warning.”

Ser Myrcella of Tarth nods uncertainly. “So she didn’t steal him?”

“She would never do any such thing,” Pod replies bluntly.

Anara’s brow knits together in thought. “How recent are they, then? I mean, together?”

“Some time after the Riverlands campaign.”

“What?” Anara gasps, whilst Myrie just looks confused.

Pod smiles at her. “How long after you arrived on Tarth did you fall into bed with our sister-knight here?”

Myrcella says, “Weeks,” in the very same moment that Anara says, “Days.” The three share a moment of soft laughter as the daughter of lions blushes prettily before nodding. “Days,” she shyly admits.

“Well then,” Pod says, not a little smugly, “you two are only moons younger than they are. And even then, they’ve had to be careful.” At their puzzled looks, he explains. “The Lady Brienne became the Evenstar before she was thirty, with the proviso that she would never have children. The Queen did it to spite him, Lolla says. I’m inclined to agree.” He huffs. “And now she has them parading about Westeros like puppets for her own ends, unable to be themselves. It’s a fucking disgrace.” He knows he must sound mulish on the matter, but he doesn’t care. He has met two of the most powerful queens in recent history and liked neither, even if he is sworn to serve one of them. Though to be honest, the kings have been catastrophic, too, apart from poor Tommen, who never even got the chance to prove himself.

He is broken from his thoughts by a soft kiss to his right cheek. Myrie smiles up at him. “Thank you for putting my mind at ease, Ser Podrick.”

She still looks a little troubled though, underneath the kind veneer on her face and Pod speaks to her honestly. “I did not like your lady mother, Ser Myrcella. I found her to be cruel. But I do not think she was lying when she wrote those letters to you. She believed what she told you, even if she couldn’t have been more wrong.” Green eyes become glassy in front of him. He continues. “And I do know one thing. She loved her children. More than anything in the world, she cared for you.”

He finds himself wrapped in her arms as all three of them watch the little campfire in a solemn silence. The Evenstar and her knight are companionably quiet themselves, until a Lannister soldier approaches and Brienne of Tarth hauls herself up to her feet to stand imposingly, awaiting whatever issue is being brought to her. Even as she does, Ser Jaime seems to shrink away, not physically but as a presence. He makes himself small and Pod feels Myrcella sigh as she loosens her grip on him. “When can they ever be themselves?” There is an tiny edge to her voice, the birth of a familiar frustration that he himself has been carrying for most of his life.

“Rarely, I think,” Anara says, the same frustration new in her as well.

Podrick nods in confirmation. “Almost never.”

/-/-/-/-/

 “It doesn’t look very much like a lion’s mouth," Brienne says, tilting her head oddly, taking in the ornamentation almost dripping from the main gate of Casterly. "Though I suppose there are a lot of lions,” she continues, sounding a touch disapproving.

Jaime is surprised that he thinks so too, the grandiosity that he once drew pride from now seeming full of hubris. But that doesn't mean he can let her comment pass too lightly. "Do you mean to say that my childhood home isn't to your taste, my Lady?"

"I think I rather prefer my own," she huffs at him, as they complete their hour long ride up to the seat of the Lannister family.

"I can’t quite say as I disagree," he replies when the vast stonework swallows them, and they both look up to take in eyes of guards peering down warily from the murder holes above. The metallic clatter of horseshoes falls away and they pull up inside the gate, both dismounting to wait for grooms to come forward.

His feet land and he glances towards the huge wooden doors, shielded with bands of iron coated with a needless layer of gold. And the world seems to stop, becoming nothing but a sick rolling of his stomach. He hardly notices as Brienne takes his horse's reins gently from his fingers and whispers, “Go to her, Jaime.”

He moves, though it feels like it is through the thickest of muds. His aunt Genna is seated in the doorway under a small, red canopy being held aloft by servants to shade her from the midday sun. And she is not herself. Once large and undeniably, if somewhat overpoweringly, womanly, time and illness have made her thin and frail. Folds of skin hang from the underside of her jaw and what little is exposed of her chest is sunken, wrinkled and grey. All of the force of character that had once seemed to flow from her, filling any space she entered, is simply gone away. Fear carries him forward, only to ebb slightly as he draws closer.

Green eyes may have clouded, but time has not truly broken her, he realizes, as she beckons him in with a wry smile. “I don’t know what you expected, Jaime. I might not make it to four score years, but I’ve given it a good try.” She raises her hand weakly to bring him yet nearer and Jaime slowly kneels in front of her, letting her tired eyes take him in. Suddenly, she lets out a short snort of mirth. “You look old, nephew!”

“A common thought these days,” Jaime grins, reaching out to rest his fingers gently over hers, trying not to react to them feeling like dry, brittle twigs against his own. “You, however, look like the very breath of spring, my dear aunt.”

“I would say that lies do not become you, sweetling, but I think I’ll let it pass today,” she replies with great warmth. But then she looks about, as if confused. Jaime is gripped by a moment of panic, worried that her apparent lucidity is failing her, but Genna dispels it with a question. “Where is your brother? I was told he was travelling with you.”

“He didn’t think it appropriate that he should visit.” Jaime shakes his head. “I had no idea until recently you still hadn’t met again, in all of these years.”

The wrinkles peppering his aunt’s face deepen as she frowns. “Tyrion’s work, not mine. He has only ever visited Casterly when I have been absent.  And when I have gone to King’s Landing, he has always seemed to have an alarming number of meetings to attend.” She looks over his shoulder in the direction of Brienne and her voice becomes almost as imperious as Jaime can ever remember it, laid only over a mild breathlessness. “ _You_! Go to your camp, get Lord Tyrion Lannister and bring him to me! Ser Jaime need not be guarded here.”

Brienne does well, just gaping in disbelief for a heartbeat before she bows politely and takes the reins of her horse back from the stable lad. She mounts easily and is gone in moments, sharing a half-smile with him as she turns her animal about, before clattering back off down the side of the Rock. Jaime is convinced she would rather ride from camp to castle, back and forth all day long, instead of sharing dull pleasantries, so this is working out rather well for her, all told.

“So, nephew, where is this Evenstar I’m always hearing so much about?” His aunt’s query pulls his attention back to her and he chuckles.

“Why, aunt, you just sent her to fetch Tyrion.”

Genna looks at him, her features quite lit with curiosity. He can’t tell if she actually knew it or not to begin with. “Really? Well, that puts a few rumours I’ve heard over the years to rest.” Jaime doesn’t answer. His aunt knows him too well for him to get away with lying to her. The silence clearly tells its own story though and her following words are not too far froma challenge. “She’s big, isn’t she? And not entirely pretty, from what I could see.”

“She is quite ridiculously tall,” Jaime answers, hoping that will be enough to let the matter rest.

Old eyes narrow, but the subject is changed in any case, and they spend a little while conversing in the late summer sun about Tarth, the rose garden that Genna has had planted at the Rock to anger some long forgotten cousins, and the oncoming winter. Then his aunt falls into a fitful doze and he quietly moves to sit on the floor beside her, rubbing at his pained kneecaps. A servant brings him a flagon of wine, which he accepts with a grateful nod, and he waits.

Lady Genna Frey doesn’t stir until the hoofbeats of a lone horse rend the air nearly two hours later. She shudders into a state of wakefulness as Brienne pulls her mount to a halt inside the gate, it would seem alone. To dismount, she throws her leg high over in front of her and the reason only becomes clear as her bulk is removed from the back of it. Jaime doesn’t know what transpired down in the camp, but the Evenstar has obviously chosen to make the Lord of the Rock ride up to his own castle behind her. Ruler of these lands or no, Jaime watches as she simply lifts Tyrion from the back of her saddle and places him on his feet with no ceremony, and less dignity. His brother looks up at Jaime’s love mutinously, but Brienne just points in Genna’s direction. “Go, my Lord.”

Tyrion straightens his tunic. “We shall be having words about this later, my Lady Evenstar.”

Brienne’s eyebrows twitch and Jaime is relieved at the sight. Whatever has happened, it isn’t that bad. Simply a whole barrel of bickering, if he can at all read the matter. “I look forward to that,” she almost smiles and Tyrion turns in their direction.

His short strides seem to take forever to eat up the space between them. Tyrion quickly looks at him in alarm at the state of their aunt, but Jaime shakes his head.

_She is still with us._

If anything, that reassurance appears to make his brother more nervous, but eventually he stops and gives a swift bow in the place Jaime had knelt in earlier. “My Lady Aunt.”

Then silence falls, deep and heavy. Tywin seems to loom over them, long gone, but as if they would not need the shade of the red canopy, were it borne away by a sudden wind.

Genna and Tyrion regard each other. And it is a painful thing to see. The present wars with the past, loyalty and family battling without a sound.

In the end, their elder sighs and speaks gently, weary of a lifetime of conflict. “I loved the man your father once was. If anybody had reason to loathe who he became, it was you.”

Tyrion inclines his head. “Thank you. And I am sorry.”

Genna stares at him, half-blind and all too seeing, for a few shallow breaths more. And then she smiles. “Excellent. We should have had this talk years ago, but I am too old to be chasing errant nephews all over Westeros. Especially when they are trying to avoid me,” she says pointedly. Then she reaches out for the arm of his cousin, who appears as if from nowhere, and tries not to sound exhausted and pained as she struggles to her feet. “We should get you settled in. We are to eat in an hour.”

/-/-/-/-/

Jaime can’t help but think the air maudlin as they gather to eat. There are no children here, just older people for the most part, packed in small knots about the hall, all hushed conversations and suspicion. He doesn’t know what these aged Lannister loyalists want or expect from him; just that they are irked that he should be taking up any of his aunt’s now limited time. He meets any dark looks cast in his direction with ones of his own, not lacking his own form of judgment. He knows who these people are. What they are.

_The vultures are circling._

His father would be appalled, no doubt, but he is unconcerned that, although Tyrion will still hold Casterly Rock itself after their aunt’s passing, it will by no means be the whole place it once was. Let the little lordlings take what they can, whilst they can. Not even his brother yet knows he’ll be able to regain everything lost, soon enough, with a deft flick of a quill and ink.

_It means nothing to me, in any case._

Jaime had never thought to see his childhood home again and now that he has, he finds himself unfeeling about it. There’s nothing but memories to hold his thoughts here and he carries them with him anyway. The only place he wants to see during his visit isn’t even within the castle walls. And he watches as the only reason for his being here at all walks with a slow, measured dignity into the Great Hall.

He remains shocked by the physical changes in his aunt, even if it is clear to him that her mind remains unblemished by her approaching end. He can see that her movements are deliberate, masking her discomfort as she leans lightly on the arm of her son, the only surviving child of her own. There is none of the bustle and largeness of character that has always filled his mind when he thinks of this most dear, yet admittedly overbearing, relative.

Her progress to her seat at the head of the U-shaped top table is almost painful to watch and Jaime would pity her, if she hadn’t already firmly told him not to. _"I've lived a long life, sweetling, longer than I probably deserved. 'Valar morghulis', as our eastern friends would say. They fail to mention women, of course,"_ she had sniffed, a little disapprovingly _, "but I think it is the same for us all, when it boils down to it."_

Once she has taken her seat, he watches those about him scurrying to take their own places, the subtle and meaningless politics of claiming a good position at the dinner table becoming quietly ferocious in some andcoldly unpleasant in others. Jaime walks easily to the seat his aunt has already insisted he take at her left, smiling as he settles himself next to her.

"Why, my dear nephew, if I didn't know better, I would say you were finding some amusement in the spoon rattling of our gathered nobles." Being Genna, she says this somewhat too loudly, bringing a swift end to the lordly melee as a sudden rush of arses onto chairs is followed by an awkward silence.

He looks at his elder with a sharp grin. "I had forgotten how much fun this could be, dearest aunt. Seating isn't at all arranged on Tarth."

"Really?" Rheumy eyes peer up at him, though they still sparkle with dry humour. "Perhaps I should try that here. It could make the whole thing vastly more entertaining."

Even Tyrion, sitting to his left, quietly laughs at this. His youngest sibling is still uncomfortable at this long-delayed meeting with Genna, but his face brightens as he looks towards the large doorway. "Speaking of Tarth..."

Brienne enters the Hall and within moments, Jaime finds himself surprised by her once more. She walks formally in her light armour, yet with a grace he has never seen in her before. Long paces take her past the hard stares of men and women alike, but if she notices, she doesn't seem to be affected by them.

Many of those who sit around, judging her, are of comparable age. The men are dismissive, defensive at the very thought of a female assuming the place of a soldier. The ladies, clothed only in their silks and advancing age, see an ugly woman, a shame to their sex, and look on her with a mixture of revulsion and pity.

_They are all so wrong._

He sees her now. He finally knows who she is. She is easy in her skin, in her position as both a warrior and as the ruler of her own people. As their representative in this sorry place. Though here and now she is not the kind head of a House, weighed down with the cares of her people, nor is she the shy girl who had to fight so hard to simply prove that she could.

This is Brienne of Tarth, the Evenstar, a woman comfortable with her own power, who wears it unashamedly. It seems to spill from her blue cloak, a flowing statement of fact.

_This is who she was meant to be._

It stuns him. He glances at the faded row of softly chattering women who sit to one side, their children born and grown, their charms gone. Their purpose served. _Their lives done._ Unlike his aunt, who has missed no opportunity to meddle in anything over the course of her long life, so few of them will engage in anything else other than the immediate concerns of their own families. Jaime doesn’t think it their fault. It is what they were raised to do.

_And then there is Brienne._

He watches her make her way to stand in front of Tyrion first, as custom would dictate. Genna may be the resident here, but Jaime's brother is still the Lord of the Rock. The Evenstar dips into a perfect bow and gazes across the table. "My Lord Lannister."

Tyrion smiles at her. "My Lady of Tarth. You are most welcome here at Casterly Rock."

"I thank you." She inclines her head politely and moves to stand in front of Genna, her eyes barely brushing over Jaime as she does so. Again she bows. "My Lady Frey. It is an honour to visit you."

"Frey, indeed," the older woman says, her tone dry. "In truth, most still call me Lannister, even now. Come closer, child." She reaches up, her hand frail, and Brienne nearly starts in shock before lowering her face to wasted fingers that stroke over her broken nose and damaged cheek, finally pinching at an ear in a gesture Jaime knows so very well.

A dying woman smiles. “Aren't you too rare? Now, my Lady Brienne, you must sit next to me. Move along, nephews,” Genna orders, clearly with no expectation of having her wishes denied. He and Tyrion just grin at each other and do as she says. This is an old game, one their aunt played for her own amusement even in their childhoods. If they have to move, so does everybody else on this side of her. There is a general shuffling as those seated rise and take the chairs to their left, in some cases hampered by the serving boys who sweep in to move platters and goblets along. By the time Brienne has calmly walked around to take her seat between Jaime and Genna, the wave of movement has settled and the inevitable has occurred.

His aunt squints at the far end of the table. “Which House lost this time?”

Jaime looks at the younger man standing befuddled at the end of the table, having no seat left to take. “I have no idea.”

Tyrion leans forward to speak. “Kennett, I think.”

Genna shrugs. “One of the new Houses. There are so many since the war.” She sighs, though there is not a drop of unhappiness in it. “Oh well, we must keep them in line, I suppose. _Don’t worry, Kennett!”_ she calls out. “A servant will bring you a stool on which you can sit!”

“My dear aunt,” Jaime says, “You have softened in your dotage.” Brienne raises an eyebrow at him. “She used to wait and see if they would sit with the smallfolk or choose to crouch at the end of the table instead. You would be surprised at how many did the latter.” He can almost hear his nearly wife sigh ‘ _Lannisters_ ’ as she turns her attention back to Genna, who looks entirely unapologetic about the whole thing.

The older woman peers up at Brienne for some time before asking a question. “Tell me, Lady Brienne, are those terrible square necklines still widely worn in King’s Landing?”

Brienne is silent for a few seconds as she struggles to find a suitable reply. “I’m afraid I know nothing of square necklines, Lady Genna, other than it would be a dreadful choice for armour.”

“Good,” Genna says, almost gleefully. “I was hoping to hear about your battles in any case. We women are often denied the talk of men, but I think it would be more than acceptable with you.”

The two women begin a happy conversation about disembowelment, unmindful of the fact that they are turning a few nearby stomachs. And if his aunt notices, when the Evenstar’s knife flies out to spear the large slice of uncooperative venison on Jaime’s plate into stillness, without even looking at him, she says nothing, just moving the talk on to the cutting of throats.

/-/-/-/-/

Brienne takes the last of Tyrion's small items from his hands and places them into his saddlebag, securing it with strong, deft movements of her enormously long fingers. This done, she tilts her head towards him, her features set with concern. "Are you well?"

"You need not pretend to worry for me, my Lady."

"Stop it, Tyrion," she grunts at him as she blindly fiddles with his stirrups. "We may have our disagreements, but I do care. And I know this visit has been difficult for you."

It is an offer of truce, though he can't quite accept it yet. "Well, you are the one who dragged me up here."

"I didn't drag you."

"As near as. You're right, though," he grudgingly agrees. "It has been difficult, Brienne. It'll be hard to leave her to die."

"She won't be alone," Brienne says. "Her son will stay at her side."

"Yes," Tyrion replies. "But still..."

They both look towards the grand doorway where Jaime and their cousin are guiding Lady Genna Frey to her wooden seat. It is excruciatingly slow, the much diminished and weakened frame of the old woman only allowing her to take a step or two before needing a rest. The cheer and general sense of happiness that had fought her pain for the first few days of their visit has almost ebbed away. Genna is dying apace, once more. She manages to squeeze out breathless words Tyrion cannot hear each time she halts, but she seems to frown at Jaime as his replies leave whatever she is asking unanswered or avoided.

Tyrion feels the quick bite of jealous bile at the closeness Genna and Jaime have always shared, though reason descends in seconds, taking the sting out of the knowledge. _She was always kind to me. Even now, knowing I killed my father._ _Her brother. I can hardly have hoped to find affection here._

"We should take our leave, Tyrion," Brienne quietly says, breaking him away from thoughts of his own dark deeds, of this twisted family he no longer considers his, for all that he is the lone Lannister present here. Tyrion nods and they slowly make their way across the yard as Genna appears to fold into her seat, trying to catch her breath.

They watch and wait as Genna Frey fights the pain of death itself, marshaling her features into a semblance of normalcy. Eventually, she speaks. "My Lady Evenstar," she whispers and Brienne steps forward. "I must entrust you with the mighty task," she pauses again, determination almost making her shake, "of keeping these two in line. Though I fear it may well prove impossible."

"I'll do my best, Lady Genna," Brienne says, smiling with warmth, "though I make no promises. I thank you for your welcome."

"I have little time and no patience left for pleasantries, Lady Brienne. Come closer."

The Evenstar bends down swiftly to obey, unlike her reaction to Genna's previous request some days before. This time, Brienne's start of shock comes after she is spoken to. She pulls her head back sharply and swallows convulsively. "Nearly," she manages to reply.

"Close enough, niece," the older woman whispers, so quietly that Tyrion can barely hear, even though he is standing very close by. "Take care of them."

"I will." Brienne stands and, after a bow, leaves the three of them looking at each other.

For a little while, all that can be heard is the alarming rattle in Genna's chest as air grows ever harder for her to find. But then she lifts her hand towards him. "Tyrion." He reaches out and grasps it, gentling his hold when he realizes how staggeringly weak she really is. The stern set of her jaw isn't weak, however, and Tyrion is surprised to find that the sternness is not meant for him. "I think you are to be tested, nephew," Genna says to Tyrion, glancing quickly and pointedly at Jaime, obviously displeased with his older brother, "but he will not say how."

Jaime just shrugs, feigning a lack of care and Tyrion replies, resigned to his situation. "I'm afraid he won't even tell me, aunt. I know too little to make a proper guess as to the truth of the matter. It has led to some rather wild imaginings on my part. I rather fear I'm about to be elevated to the position of Hand." They both look up sharply at Jaime, whose face has become expressionless.

"It's no use, Tyrion," Genna goes on after a moment. "Not even ear rubbing will weasel the truth out of him."

"Ear rubbing? Had I known that could've worked I would've availed myself of a ladder some time ago."

"The climbing wouldn't have been worth the effort," she says, conspiratorially and in broken pieces. "It hasn't really worked since about his tenth nameday. I think he finds it more annoying than anything."

"Sounds like it might still be worth it to me," Tyrion grins, finding his own ear being lightly tugged by shockingly weak fingers and not finding it annoying at all. The ragged edges of fingernails catch in his hair, and though he says nothing of it, Genna looks at him apologetically as her hand falls away from him.

"You have some living cousins, Tyrion," she says quietly. "But none of them have your father's mind. You do." Tyrion recoils from her words, horrified, his gut spasming at her words. But almost as if with the last of her strength, his aunt holds on to his hand. "Listen to me, child. You can deny it all you wish, but you know it is true. And it doesn't matter if -" she breaks into a great gasping, the sound wet and crackling, and Tyrion wriggles like an eel caught in a trap, old fingers still not letting go. "It doesn't matter if you don't speak to me for six moons, as your father did when I said it to him. Even six days will outlast me, I think. But you must _listen_." Tyrion knows the set of his jaw is angry, even as he nods. His aunt continues. "Our name will continue and dissipate, but if our blood and our strength are to continue, it is down to you."

She gasps again, leaning forward, her weight shifting onto elbows where they rest on the arms of her little chair. Jaime helps her straighten up, pushing her shoulders back gently. "We can stay for a few more days," he offers again.

"You will not, sweetlings," Genna says, whilst she scowls in discomfort. She doesn't want to be remembered as she will be in her last hours, or even as she is now, as they begin to cloak her. "Tyrion, train your wildling children well. The future of our people lies in the North, I think."

Tyrion laughs softly. "They are no wildlings, Aunt. But I will. This I can promise."

"That we should become wolves," Genna mutters wryly. Yet she pulls him closer, her breath heavy with the sickly sweetness of approaching death and she presses her dry lips to his forehead. "Goodbye, Tyrion," she finishes and he turns from her, heavy with new burdens, balanced upon the ones he already carries, and with unshed tears.

By the time Tyrion has clambered up the old wooden stairs from his childhood, which Brienne had requested be found and brought out for his use, Jaime is kneeling in front of Lady Genna Frey, his shoulders shaking. Tyrion settles himself atop his saddle, his short legs protesting at being splayed just slightly too widely again, and he wishes he had spent just an extra hour in the designing of it.

Once he picks up the reins, Jaime is striding across the courtyard, every inch the Winter Knight as he hauls himself up onto his own horse with ease.

_Though perhaps the Winter Knight would not weep._

Jaime nods at him, his face wet, as the three of them leave, two brothers looking back over their shoulders to see the crumpled form of a beloved, dying woman.

"You will not see our childhood home again, Jaime," Tyrion says in the moment they are spat out into the light from the Lion's Mouth.

"It doesn't matter," Jaime replies tersely, though he cries yet more freely. "It's a bloody mausoleum."

_He's right. It is a mausoleum._

A tomb for those who live, but are dying, much like the name they are trying to nurse through its final, stuttering moments.

/-/-/-/-/

The small taproom is heaving with people, the tavern keeper and his young wife moving about swiftly to cope with the large number of mouths that have suddenly descended upon their quiet inn, all needing feeding and watering. The smell of the sweat of soldiers, spilt beer, and roasted meat is everywhere as Brienne seats herself on a stool at the end of the long table near the fire, her knees pressed into the underside of the wood. She feels large even in the company of so many men and finds herself folding her limbs in towards herself, though she knows it will make no difference. Tyrion is sitting across from her with Pod and Arya and they are talking of Winterfell.

"If you like your teeth where they are, I'd stop that if I were you!" Jaime calls out, lifting a stool over a few gathered heads and dropping it down between Brienne and Tyrion, his back to the warmth of the flames. The soldier he'd addressed glares at him, but the old knight just points at Brienne.

"What's happening?"

"His hands are becoming a little too friendly with the tavern keeper's wife."

"You will cease!" Brienne hisses at the guardsman, who pales and nods. She is generally obeyed, but there are a few matters where she is used to the necessity of wielding discipline. It is widely known that this is one of them.  She turns to the harried looking young woman as she places a platter of bread and beef in front of her.  "I'm sorry. Please let me know if you have any further trouble.”

"Thank you, m'lady," she replies, curtseying badly as she pours some gravy over the dry meat. "This isn't our best food, I'm afraid. We ran out of mutton and chicken almost an hour ago." Brienne waves away her concerns and thanks her, watching Tyrion happily twirl a chicken leg in her direction.

"Brother, it probably isn't wise to tease the woman who could crush you with her little finger," Jaime grins. Tyrion just happily bites into the meat without a care, his eyebrows waggling.

Jaime starts to pick at the edge of the rerebrace on his upper right arm. "Is it hurting?" Brienne asks. He shakes his head. The armour Jaime is wearing is not his. He had sent the dark metal, which seems to fit him as a second skin, home to Tarth from King's Landing. In an attempt to look a little more worn by time, he and Pod had virtually torn apart the armoury in the Red Keep, picking a mismatched mess of plate which looks fairly old, though he claims it to be comfortable enough. Brienne isn't so sure, though Jaime stops fiddling with it when his food is placed in front of him by a serving boy, who is looking at him with nothing short of open admiration. He sighs and thanks the lad somewhat gruffly.

They watch the child scamper off, squeezing his way between red-cloaked bodies. “I thought you were trying to look old, Ser Jaime.”

He groans next to her. “I do look old, my Lady Evenstar. I’m pretty certain the only thing here more ancient than me is some of this armour.”

She tears at the crust of the bread on her platter. “You might have to try a bit harder.” She watches him grumble silently out of the corner of her eye as she chews on the hard bread. Though shortly after, she almost chokes on the morsel.

For the _singing_ has begun.

“Oh, Gods,” Jaime sighs, in time with her, both of them wincing at the ill-mixed voices resounding from the other corner of the taproom.

If they are disheartened by this turn of events, his brother is surely not. “Oh, I haven’t heard this one!” he shouts with glee.

“Tyrion…” Jaime warns, but small hands flap at him, calling for quiet.

“Hush, Jaime,” he says, “I’m listening.” Only a few, dreadful lines in and Brienne is looking at Jaime with some sympathy, though Tyrion is doing nothing of the sort. “You had seven sisters, brother? And when they say _had_ …”

Jaime leans down, suddenly nose to nose with his sibling. “You’re not too old for me to turn you over my knee and spank your arse raw, brother.”

“You just like spoiling my fun, Jaime. You always have.”

They laugh at each other. The song moves on and suddenly Jaime’s slaying of King Aery’s has changed to a fair duel, the two men battling their way through the Red Keep for hours until the mad ruler is defeated and falls under a golden blade of justice, which saves the city.

“That bit sounds better,” Jaime says mildly, though Arya and Pod are looking at one another oddly, as if they can’t quite believe what they are hearing. Pod raises a finger as if to speak, but at a random hailing of the Winter Knight’s loins, he just lets his hand drop to the table.

Various melees fly by and battles are fought in quick succession, until he is taken prisoner by the wolves of the North. In this song, his hand is eaten by a wolf with a ‘snap, snap, snap’ of sharp jaws, which almost everyone present sings along to.

Even Tyrion. “Snap! Snap! Snap!” Jaime just looks at him hopelessly.

Then years go missing and this Ser Jaime Lannister is thrown into the depths and horrors of winter. If whoever wrote this is to be believed, he had won the Winter War by himself, somehow managing to liberate Eastwatch at the same time as he’d ranged to the North, leading the forces of men against the monsters to be found there. Whilst he had saved a hundred children who were being attacked by yet more wolves in between Castle Black and Winterfell, of course.

“My, you were busy, brother,” Tyrion mutters. “I simply had no idea you were so heroic.”

Arya spits out beer in a fine mist across the table and points at herself furiously. “I want to be banished for years so I can have songs where I’m the hero!” Pod shoulders begin to shake next to her and Jaime begins to appear a little resigned to it all, although any looks cast his way by those outside of their small group are met with a flinty glare.

Brienne is almost taken with the humour of it all too, but is waiting for the sting in the tail. There’s always one in these songs. The singers recount, in terrible verse, how Jaime had killed Tormund Giantsbane in the dying days of the war ‘with nothing but his golden hand, in nothing but his breeches’.

“Did you?” Arya asks.

Jaime shakes his head. “No, he was on our side. He took a stray arrow to the gut. I liked him. Though he was rather more fond of the Lady Brienne.”

“He was not!” Brienne insists.

“He kept talking about _stealing_ you,” Jaime retorts. “That’s as good as an offer of betrothal, that far north.” The truth of that brings her to a short silence.

Their friend, the Husband of Bears, is now dead, so the song moves on to how Jaime had decided to go one better than the wildling, and fuck a giantess. Brienne drops her face into her hands as laughter rings out, but the next line makes her look at the knight next to her left with a wry curiosity. “I don’t remember that happening, either with me or any real giantess. Did you run off whilst I was asleep, once or twice?”

The concern on his face melts back into frustration. “What, _on_ the Wall? This was clearly written by someone with no idea just how bloody cold it is up there.”

And still the song goes on. “I think I should get back, before I start crushing throats.” Brienne pushes her nearly full platter over to Pod, who grins as he tips her leftovers onto his own. She’ll go back to their encampment tonight, but Tyrion, Jaime and Alfreda, the eldest of the washerwomen, have had rooms hired within the walls of the inn. Pod will be quartered with Jaime, ostensibly to guard the older man, but more likely as a drinking companion. “Try to keep your heads fairly clear, Sers, my Lord. If you can. And be careful of your chamberpot, Ser Jaime. As I recall, you’ve found them dangerous in the past.”

Tyrion looks between them in open horror at what must seem to be a risky admission, until he turns to Pod, who has collapsed onto his folded arms next to him, his current mirth fast becoming uncontrollable. His arms judder against the table and endless snorts emerge from the younger man. When he lifts his head, tears are rolling down his face, but he can only glance at Jaime before slamming his forehead back down, close to hooting at him. Brienne is finding it hard not to laugh herself, even if Jaime appears less than pleased with the sharing of this moment from a long done journey. “You are the one who didn’t put it back under the bed,” he points out.

“I was injured and tired. And it was heavy.”

“Who makes a chamberpot out of hammered lead?”

“People who have run out of chamberpots, having had all of them kicked to pieces by clumsy, disgraced knights, I’d guess.”

Jaime gapes at her description of him as clumsy, before his attention is caught by Tyrion waving his hand at him. “She had taken an arrow to her leg, a few days before,” he explains.

Brienne leans over the table. “Then he took a chamberpot to the toe. He broke it. His toe, not the chamberpot.”

“Which was far worse than your wound,” Jaime deadpans, making her grin.

“You shared a bed?” Tyrion whispers, his shock evident as he stares Jaime. “Even then?”

Brienne bends further across the table. “There were two scared children on the pallet next to it, Tyrion. One of them was your wife. Ask her if you’re worried about impropriety. There was nothing but some fairly salty language from your brother.”

“Two? Wait.” Lord Lannister shifts his attention to Pod, who is wiping his nose on his sleeve. “ _You_ shared a bed with my wife?”

“I was _eleven_!” Pod protests, though it is clear he is enjoying needling the unwitting heir to the Iron Throne. “And you are very interested in beds all of a sudden.”

Jaime just looks at Brienne, the fondness of old comrades at arms written all over him. “What a bloody sight we must’ve been. Limping alongside that dear old nag with two moaning children atop it.”

Brienne rises to her feet. “We made it through. Enjoy your chamberpot, Ser Jaime.”

“Enjoy the cold, hard ground, my Lady Evenstar,” he replies. As if bored.

/-/-/-/-/

This note still makes Jaime smile, for all that it isn’t about them.

_Your brother is annoying me. Please, Jaime, make him stop it._

A short while later, he pulls his horse up alongside Brienne’s. “Would that I could, my Lady Evenstar.”

She huffs wearily. “It was worth asking, Ser, though I wasn’t hopeful.”

“Is this yet another thing you can’t tell me about?” Tyrion sounds thoroughly irritated and they both look over their shoulders at him.

“Yes,” they say together.

/-/-/-/-/

Days stretch and blend. Moons pass and the rigours of long travel begin to take their toll on everyone. Jaime watches Brienne take the barely trained Lannister troops and bring them under some semblance of control. The time wasted on breaking and making camp each day falls. In the interests of their own safety, as much as anything else, she spends what little time she can spare passing on some basic skills to his brother’s men. She puts a swift end to the small feuds that inevitably spring up when a large body of people make an extended journey. He sees her grow tired, though he doubts anybody else notices it under the bland mask of a face she dons with her cloak.

Confrontations are unusual and end without bloodshed. In fact, most of the delays are forced upon them by colourful meetings with lordlings along the way, eager to impress with lavish shows of hospitality. The Evenstar declines most offers of shelter on the grounds that they must move with speed, but occasionally they find themselves the guests of honour at some obscure, yet noble, table. She moves through all such visits with impeccable poise and manners, but Jaime can often feel the itching under her armour himself, the need in her to keep on moving.

Their encounters with smallfolk are easier. With practice, Jaime has found that if he slumps a particular way within his patchwork of metal and keeps his head low, he can dispel his newfound reputation quickly. He has even fashioned a loop out a thick piece of rope which he keeps to restrain himself at his elbows as they pass through larger settlements. It is a useless thing which he can put in place in moments with his hand and a twist of his stump. But it looks the part and is enough to convince those they meet in passing that he is unfit to defend himself, let alone able to fight anybody else.

They head into the North. It’s still summer, but now it is definitely on the wane. Days become more overcast than sunny, even if its watery warmth is not rare.

He sits across from her, one night, at a small campfire as she arranges the resupplying of food and other needs. Now just in his mail, Jaime rocks his right shoulder back and forth, trying to work out the pain so much riding has settled into his back. It has been long years since he has spent so many days in the saddle. A small log crackles in the fire, sending up a twisting whirl of sparks and smoke. He tips his head and through the smoke, sees Brienne drop her hands, holding a note, into her lap with a resigned sigh.

He misses those fingers. The feel of them on his back.

She tips her head and meets his gaze. “I left my map in my pack. There used to be a mill near here, yes?”

Jaime tries to remember, his cheeks puffing with a hard blown breath. “There was during the war. About five miles north-east of here, I think. Though I can’t speak for now.”

She distractedly nods at him. “We’ll have to chance it. We’re low on flour.”

“All of us? Can’t we send a couple of carts?”

“No, not all of us. And not yet to the carts.” The words emerge as a tired moan and she frowns, rubbing at the bridge of her nose. “Only two of them have it made to camp yet. The other four got stuck in the ruts and mud earlier. They’ll need repairs once they get here. I think we’ll be stuck here for a day or so.” She shifts uncomfortably in her metal and stretches out her legs.  “I miss Fredrick. It’s going to be a long night.”

“Your tent?”

She shakes her head. He had wondered at the sluggishness of the putting up of canvas this evening, but had paid it little heed, thinking that perhaps she had been training more men than usual. “Take mine for a few hours.”

“Jaime, I _can’t_ ,” she says, clearly wanting to say yes.

“I’m not saying I’ll be in it, Brienne,” he says, rising to his feet. “Get some sleep. I’ll wake you when the carts get here.” She pulls herself upright and looks at him with thanks. They walk through the gathering camp. There are some tents dotted here and there throughout the trees and many little fires with groups gathered about them.

“How many people do you think the fifty guardsmen have grown into?” she asks. “Fifty dragons would mean fifty dragons, more or less.”

“At least double. You know that isn’t how most travellers work, Brienne. Nobody else has your stern practicality.”

“Stern?” she says, anything but colouring her tone.

“Now, Brienne,” he says, almost under his breath, “you know I like nothing better than when you’re stern.” He watches her skin start to flush. “There it is,” he teases. “I’ve missed that.”

Arriving at his tent, he lifts the flap extravagantly, making sure to draw the eyes of as many people as he can. “My Lady. Your chamber awaits.”

“Very funny,” she mutters as she hunches to get inside. “Thank you.”

“Ser Anara!” he shouts, catching the attention of his nearby nearly good-daughter. Dark brown eyes watch the Evenstar’s cloak disappearing into his tent and she starts to make her way over to them, readying herself to help their leader out of her armour without needing to be asked.

The flap opens a touch and blue eyes peer out at him. “It smells of you in here.” It sounds like she is smiling.

“It’ll smell of you, later,” he replies softly. “So we both win.” Then she is gone and so is he.

/-/-/-/-/

An hour later, he is looking at the split axle of one of the carts at the edge of the camp when Anara comes over to him, her small nose wrinkling. “You smell fucking awful,” she says quietly, but with her customary bluntness. “Though she doesn’t seem to mind. She’s curled into your blankets, sleeping like a babe.” She leans down and grimaces at the damage. “You’re not going to wake her, are you? She’s absolutely bloody worn out. We’ve been so worried about her.”

Jaime grasps the rim of the cartwheel and hauls himself up from his protesting knees with an unhappy hiss of air through his teeth. “Not if I can help it.”

Anara narrows her eyes at the broken wood. “How are they going to replace it?”

“I don’t think they plan to. There was some talk of splicing.”

His uncertainty on matters of carpentry must be shining through in his voice because Anara stands back up and fondly tugs at his beard. “You highborns. About as much use as a sodding candle in the summer sun. If they can’t make a new one, they’ll need Gendry to band it.”

Jaime pulls her fingers away from his face as if they are diseased. “Stop that, child. And?”

“Our married folk have their tent up.” Anara’s teeth flash in the low light. “I think they’re in it.”

“Oh,” Jaime says. “Well, I think you’d better be the one to interrupt them. Embarrassing Arya is nearly impossible. Gendry, however…”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Anara says, skipping off through the mud of the camp.

“I can see why she loves you,” Jaime says to himself, speaking of his daughter when he starts to tug his mail from his body. He plans to be seen here throughout the night, visible to all, so Brienne can rest without the talk of others. Anara is right. He’ll be worse than useless here. Still, he waits for the knightsmith to arrive and thinks of the one he loves, wrapped in his blankets.

/-/-/-/-/

_I’m bored._

He rolls up the small piece of leather, along with its precious contents, and stows it safely away.

A little later, he says only three words to her.

“So am I.”

/-/-/-/-/

Jaime has been gone for half of an hour before Brienne starts to grow concerned. It isn't unusual for people to drop in and out of their column, as everybody has to make water every so often, but he has been gone for so long. She tells Pod to keep everybody moving and pulls her mount over to the side of the Kingsroad, waiting for their party to pass her. As the laundresses at the rear finally go by, giggling and chattering on their mules, Brienne turns her horse and makes her way back along the churned surface.

A few minutes later, she hears ringing laughter off to one side. In an explosion of small leaves, a young man drags an equally young woman out from the woodland brush lining the roadside. The cook's maid is pulling at her skirts and flapping them, straightening them out, and the Lannister guard is sadly not quite tucked back into his breeches. They freeze like rabbits in torchlight when they see Brienne, though they have nothing to fear from her. They seem happy enough and she smiles at them as she rides past. "You'll want to deal with that," she advises, pointing vaguely at the unwary guard's breeches, setting his hands to scrabbling at the laces. The woman shrieks and stares at her, but Brienne just looks back kindly, waving back in their direction of travel. "If you hurry, you'll catch up with everyone in no time at all."

She tries not to laugh to herself as they begin to run through the mud, hand in hand. Only a few more moments are needed to bring Jaime's horse into sight. It is tied to a tree, its rider nowhere to be seen. She dismounts and secures her own animal. "Jaime?"

"Brienne." His voice is quiet. She steps around the trunk to find him standing mere feet away, dappled in the sunlight softly shining down through leaves and branches. "Are they gone?" It takes her a moment to realize he means the couple who were nearby. She nods. "Good," he says dryly, though his smile doesn't reach his eyes.

A breeze catches the smaller branches of the trees about them, moving the light across his skin. As the shadows ripple over him, he feels too still to her, like he is caught in amber, and Brienne suddenly needs to explain her presence to him. "You were away for a long time. I didn't know why...", she stops, the air sucked from her lungs as if she has taken a kick to the chest, "... _this place_."

"Yes," he says, barely to be heard above the rustle of green leaves.

"We must've walked past here on our way to King's Landing. In our chains." Her throat now feels painfully tight. "How did we not see?"

"You left your mark on the south side of the tree, Brienne. It was easy to miss." He reaches out at shoulder height, brushing over the scars where a deep series of cuts, angrily hacked into a harmless trunk in the deepest of winter, seem to have boiled over with sap, leaving a grotesque swelling. Bark-covered scabs where once there was a sword.

She takes a step toward him, looking at his fingers, struggling to think of then. "I don't remember doing that."

"I didn't remember you holding us."

Neither of them dare utter it, not in this place of her end. It is as if the sound of a name that wasn’t truly hers would bring her forth from that frozen time to here, yet not to live. Never to live. To them, she will always be the child with skin darkened by winter, doomed to die in the cold, only to perish on a dagger's point when all hope was gone.

Brienne glances down at her feet and a shock runs through her, making her stumble back, a sharp cry of revulsion falling from her lips. She has been standing in the very spot in which the tiny girl died. She doesn't know why it affects her so, for it often feels that she carries death with her everywhere, yet she stands, her hand clamped over her mouth, air rushing in and out of her nose.

Jaime silently walks to her and stops. Understanding flows from him and wraps around her.

_It is the same for him too._

Slowly, so slowly, he lifts his hand again, swaying it softly in the air, as if trying to recall something. But then he looks up at her and places it on her armour, where it covers her waist. Precisely over the skin where she'd put it on the night he ended Shara's suffering, as they lay together in the snow.

She is stunned that he can even remember it and can only look at him, accepting his wordless thanks and care. They stand there for a little while, unmoving, but eventually Jaime turns to the place where Shara died, his head low. His scuffs his toes at the clumps of grass and sounds almost disbelieving when he speaks again. "There is nothing left of her."

Brienne finds her own voice. "We buried her in the snow, Jaime. She would have been gone in hours."

_Food for wolves. Or sleepy, starving bears. Or people._

It doesn't need saying and they don't.

"I know," he says. He seems weary now. "We should leave."

"Jaime." Green eyes pin her and she loses her words. What is there to say here?

His gaze flickers behind her. "We really should leave, Brienne."

Her eyes follow his and find Arya standing there. "I haven't been here long," she reassures them.

She and Jaime take one last look about this place, meaningless to everyone in the world but them, before taking to their horses with the younger knight. They ride to the  north once more, and the time it takes to rejoin their column is both too short and too long, the air thick and heavy about them.

If the laundresses show extra interest as they approach the rear of the group, neither Jaime or Brienne notice it. The presence of Arya and the set of their faces, cast into sadness, is enough to stifle any new rumours about them before they even have the chance to form.

/-/-/-/-/

 “The Evenstar would speak with you, Ser Jaime.”

The First Knight of Tarth looks up at her almost blankly and nods. Arya waits for him to rise from his place by the fireside, and he is slow in the doing of it. So it has been since that tree, whatever it meant to them. Ser Jaime of Tarth may carry the white hair and wrinkles of age, but she thinks these last few days have been the first time she has seen his years sitting so heavily upon him.

She has had enough of it and she is not alone in the thought.

They walk in silence through the camp and Arya doesn’t even bother to look at the man at her shoulder, to see if he is worried. That will be gone soon enough. They walk past a group of Lannister guardsmen who are gambling with dice by an ill-tended fire, though their curses and jests fade in the moments that the two dragons walk silently by. But five steps see the ribaldry resume and Arya hears Ser Jaime chuckle wearily at her side. "I know I'm old but I'm not deaf."

Arya grins at him. "I'm not even old." Ser Jaime just huffs at her.

The Evenstar's tent stands ringed by those of her other dragons. It is larger, but only out of necessity rather than any wish on her part to make a display of her higher rank. Arya is aware that Ser Brienne would far rather travel in exactly the same way as those she commands, but accepts that she must have a place for meetings with any nobles they encounter on their long journey.

They step inside the thick canvas flap which serves as a door and Pod nods at Arya before leaving the tent. Within moments, the repetitive noise of a small whetstone working a blade begins to ring out. In the meantime, the Evenstar turns from her washbowl set upon the small table, dressed in her breeches and a water spattered, loose undershirt, and looks at them both in confusion. "What is this?" She drops the cloth in her hand into the water and runs her fingers through her damp hair, clearly agitated by the presence of the man she loves in her tent, by this dangerous breach in propriety.

Arya ignores her question, moving to the small pile of books by her bedroll and picking the top one up. It is a red, leather book and appears to be about an obscure fighting style from the Summer Isles. “May I look at this?” she asks, walking over to the table and placing it there carefully, so as to avoid wetting the precious item with the water droplets spilled onto the wooden surface. She drags over one of the only two chairs in the tent and turns it so the back is facing the two older knights, who are both looking at her sternly. “You’ve been apart for so long and sodding miserable since that tree.” She lifts the ends of the scarf she had purposely wrapped around her neck earlier, knowing and not caring that she looks a fool as she ties it over the top of her head, covering her ears. “Hold each other, do anything you need to and I’ll be reading. I’m sure Pod will let us know if anyone comes to call.” She spares them only a moment, noticing them both start to smile, before she plants her backside on the chair, leaving them firmly behind her and opening the little book.

For a few minutes, she finds herself absorbed by the images on the pages in front of her, but it is soon apparent that this book holds nothing new for her, other than the techniques of fighting from one reed-built ship to another, which she is unlikely to ever find useful. She flicks back and forth through the pages, but at the muffled sound of soft speech behind her, she finds herself thinking of the Lady Brienne and Ser Jaime.

She knows that, even now, only she and Pod have ever seen them being at all intimate. In their own chambers on Tarth, they are both very different, easy and happy with each other. Themselves in a way they cannot be, anywhere else in the world. Arya is now used to seeing them abed when the sun is newly risen and though she has never witnessed them make love, she is sure she has occasionally only just missed the act, finding them wrapped up in tangled sheets and limbs. Smiling at her, at one another, and at the smell of the single portion of breakfast she likes to bring them on a square, wooden tray.

She considers her long held silence on the matter of their marriage and silently curses herself again. She wishes she could be braver, but she is afraid for Brienne, should she come to know it. Jaime simply wouldn’t care. Arya knows this as surely as she knows that the sun will rise come morning, even if it chooses to remain shy, cloaked in clouds again. But the Evenstar is a different sort. And she must deal with the Queen far too often to keep such a thing concealed. But then Arya hears a quiet and muted, womanly laugh behind her. And she realizes the truth.

_She has kept this hidden all along._

Perhaps the weight of Arya’s remembrance of a single word from her brother, felt like a blow through the palm of her hand on rough bark, more than heard, need not be hers to carry anymore. She chances a quick glance behind her and finds it becomes long.

Brienne of Tarth and Jaime of Tarth, the unknowing husband and wife, are doing nothing more but standing and holding each other. Their faces gently rub together as they speak too quietly for Arya to hear. They seem to both bicker and speak of love, though she can’t be sure until the soft brushing of an empty wrist over the small of a larger back brings an unfettered warmth to the face of the Evenstar. Their foreheads touch and long arms draw tighter, bringing them yet closer together. They will do nothing more here, she thinks, but Arya can see that, for now, it is enough for both of them. She turns back to the red book, running her fingers over the smooth cover, and finds herself overwhelmed by a sudden sense of conviction.

_They must know._

But she is Ser Arya Stark of the House of Tarth, and no idiot. This place is wrong and the timing could not be worse. She can wait. They can wait some more, but they will be told, once it is safe for them to know.

_Once we are home again. When the time is right. It’s been too long already. Surely they deserve to know?_

Arya muses on the possibilities, of the how and when, but it feels like only seconds have passed when the long fingers of a lone hand untangle the knot of her scarf on top of her head with surprising ease and come to rest on her shoulder. “Thank you, Little Wolf,” Ser Jaime says, his voice steeped in affection.

She looks up at him and grins. “Let me know if you need to meet again.”

She watches him as he turns his attention back to his wife and warmth seems to spill from him. “It won’t be too often, I think, Ser Arya, but we might.”

The Evenstar who is not the Evenstar right now, somewhat shyly nods at them both. “Thank you, Arya.”

“I should go,” Jaime says, only to stride confidently back over to Brienne and lift himself up onto his tip-toes to whisper something directly into the Lady Brienne’s ear. The skin of the great woman warrior grows red as her lips are brushed with his and he makes to leave. He reaches out to pull back the tent flap, but is stopped by three words.

“Yes,” Brienne says. “That. Then.”

Ser Jaime of Tarth just smiles widely at her and is gone.

The Lady Brienne stares at the rippling canvas for upwards of a minute before dragging her gaze away.

“You’re not going to tell me what he said at all, are you?” Arya lightly asks.

“No!” Brienne bursts out. Then she looks across the tent with fondness. “But thank you again.”

/-/-/-/-/

Brienne wakes slowly, though it is still dark. The first, high trills of birdsong greet her and she stretches languidly under her blankets, smiling at the sound.

_The Hour of the Nightingale. The hour of us._

She pushes her shoulders down into her bedroll and arches the small of her back up from it, exhaling slowly as her spine clicks. For all that she has spent so much of her life resting on blankets or the bare ground, she is not as young as she once was. She misses her bed, truth be told.

_Our bed. Him._

She slumps back into the thin down keeping the chill of the earth from her.

_I will be alone for a little while yet._

But also not alone. She laughs to herself quietly, small huffs in the air as she thinks back to Jaime’s whispered words to her yesterday. _Come daylight, I’ll have been thinking of our second night. When we got so tangled. Will you? In our time?_

She feels the rush of blood to her skin and half wants to curse its ever continued presence, though she knows that whenever Jaime wakes, be it now or later, he will think much on it. More than once he has attempted to chase the edge of the flush of red over her skin with his lips and has always failed in his self-appointed task. It seems to be the unwinnable quest, but even recently he’s still sometimes tried, back on Tarth.

It is those numerous memories of his face hovering over her in their space, in their two rooms, a strange mixture of desire and slightly annoyed defeat, which frees her from the constraints she has chosen to place around herself since they left their home. She has feared for his safety, for his _life_ , so much that she has only allowed herself brief thoughts of them together; for all that their old love is still new. Barring one night, which led to her writing a two word note, she has only been the Evenstar on this journey, herself sublimed by duty.

Yet she knows she can think of him freely now. The pattern of their travel is long since set, all suspicion of anything between them gone. Her restraint has perhaps been over-cautious, but now, _now_ she can want him.

So she does.

One hand brushes up under her loose shirt, her fingers finding her nipples already hard and tight and tingling as she thinks of that second night. Jaime had torn the shirt she'd worn that day in his eagerness to find her skin, shocking her into the realization that he still wanted her, despite having seen every inch of her the night before. She hadn’t thought it possible, for all of his words and actions telling her differently. Brienne hears herself sigh as a callused finger brushes over puckered skin, imagining it as his.

Her mind wanders away from that night and into the next tent, wondering if he is awake yet. If he is thinking of her. _Of course he would be. You know this._ She curses herself again, this time for an idiot, even as her sword hand loosens the laces of her breeches and sweeps inside her smallclothes, her fingers starting to brush against coarse hair.

She is not the one he once loved. Yet she is the one he loves now, with everything that he is and she knows it.

She _knows_ it.

She bites her lip and thinks of him lying in his bedroll, long fingers wrapped around his cock, perhaps imagining they are hers in his turn. Of the heavy beat set by his hand as his stomach starts to twitch and his right heel starts to slowly rub up and down against the blanket that he’d thrown from his body, ending up beneath his feet.

Since their first night together, he has never shown one scrap of physical shyness with her without good reason. Of course, she knew nothing of what it meant to be a man, or even to be a woman with a man. Yet he had shown her this despite his own fears, even on their first night, how she could find his pleasure as well as working hard to find hers.

They had been so scared of each other then. That they would do anything that would make it wrong. Their whole lives were so tied up in one another that there was a fear they would lose everything. But that is all long gone.

_And for all that our second night was so good, I wouldn’t trade it for our last._

She starts to let her fingers play, a delicate dance over nub and folds as she falls into her most recent memory of them together. It hadn’t been perfect. It had been anything but, though it had started so well and ended with such pleasure and warmth.

Having nuzzled and teased at her until she shook, he'd moved over her, to take her, leaning on his forearms, tucked next to her sides. She could feel the strain of his muscles working against the cradle of her thighs as he slowly thrust his way into her and they both sighed in a relief they know so well. She'd been close already and just a few long slides of him filling her had been enough to set her to gasping.

Brienne's fingers move faster over herself as she remembers the intensity of his gaze and the feel of him inside. Yet even though her body is beginning to move, her hips rocking up in this empty tent, she slows them to a stop. What came next wasn't so pleasant, but was very much of them.

Her breath is rushing in and out of her in the night, but in her mind it is daylight. She'd wanted him deeper and had raised her legs higher on him, folding them loosely around his lower back, the sweat coating it damp against her calves. Jaime shifted his weight in response, only to cry out. And not in pleasure.

Brienne had known what it was straight away. It'd happened a few times before over the years. Sometimes a small movement was all it took to make pain in his arm. She'd squeezed her own between them straight away, taking the weight of his right shoulder on the back of her forearm and lifting her other hand to stroke his beard. "It's alright, Jaime. We can stop," she'd said, though her voice was rough and where she held him inside of her, she felt like she was screaming, her need was so great.

He'd shaken his head, as she'd expected him to, lifting his stump free of the mattress. It shifted him above her, seating him more firmly in her heat and she'd whimpered at it, tightening around him as she asked, "Me...on top?"

"No," he grunted, part pain, part want still raging through him. He'd always said that too, when this happened. Brienne had once accused him of being stubbornly manly about it and he simply replied 'yes'.

So she lay beneath him, full of him and holding him, watching as he dropped his head and waited for his pain to ease. She was concerned,but all the time, her breath came short and she fought to resist the urge to rock her hips to find friction. Even the stilled length of him felt sweet stretching her and his hipbones pressing into the flesh of her thighs made her flutter and press around his cock, making Jaime half-chuckle above her. "You're being very patient," he’d muttered, not looking up, his breath brushing over the top of her small breast.

Alone in her bedroll, Brienne's fingers begin to move again. He only ever wants her to wait until his hurt passes and she has done so, even now. She reaches out to grasp Jaime's shirt, the one he'd said she could keep when he had let her sleep in his tent, and ends up holding it beneath her own rucked up shirt, against her bare stomach. She wants him near so much.

Back in the daytime, after a minute of forever, his head had risen and he was himself once more. She'd cupped his face with her free hand, running her thumb across his lips. She had almost been shivering under him as she looked into his eyes and said, "I love you."

And how she'd meant it. How she always means it.

He'd gazed down at her for a moment as if she was both a puzzle and the whole of everything, but then his lips had tipped into a lazy smile. And he started to move.

At first, he did so with excruciating slowness and Brienne had had to push up hard against the shoulder she was supporting. She thought she might shake to pieces beneath him, but she wouldn't let him fall. Low moans escaped her with each deliberate stroke and he was beautiful above her.

For an age he did this, his jaw tight with control, though she had been left with almost none. And then, when the name of the gods and his own started to fall from her mouth, one sharp thrust broke her. Still she held him up, when all else was gone from her but sheer pleasure, the thrill of him heating her blood as he did so again and again.

On her own, Brienne holds Jaime’s shirt tight against her skin as her wet fingers bring her to the edge. It isn’t the memory of her tightening around him or of him driving into her that breaks her now though, however warm those thoughts are. It is the sound of his groan that day as he finally let go, a groan that changed into a rough chanting of her name as he spilled into her, loud and then soft, ending on a whisper as she had gently lowered her arm and he lay on her chest.

It was the sweetest song she’s ever heard and her body sings with it.

Brienne throws her head back hard, her mouth open in a silent gasp as this fresh pleasure arcs through her. Her nipples are hard, feeling every brush of her shirt over them and the tremors inside her are a strangely sharp, honeyed bliss. She moves her fingers over her nub and lets each wave of it race through her until it gentles and slows. She relaxes back down into her bedroll, her legs splayed and lies still, closing her eyes to let the last of it all wash over her.

Her mind goes back again, to that last afternoon they shared and she recalls how, after some time, Jaime had rolled off her, lying on his left side, and she’d rolled to face him. Brienne grabbed a pillow and placed it over her waist and then moved his stump to rest on it, with as much care as she could find. That done, she’d looked at him and asked, “Your arm?”

“Fine,” he’d whispered. “Thank you.” But then he wriggled, bringing his left arm awkwardly up in between them and she’d found her own lips being brushed with a thumb. “Say it again.”

The doubt that clouded his eyes, however fleeting, hurt her, though she had always known he’d never thought himself good enough for her. In reply, she’d given him all the honesty she could in those simple words. “I love you, Jaime.”

In a rare moment, he had seemed almost shy. “You know, sometimes I still can't quite believe it.”

"Well, you really should," she said reassuringly and kissed him before she added, "idiot," just for good measure.

"Wench," he'd smiled and moved closer to her and they'd softly insulted each other until they slept, their bodies entwined.

Brienne leaves these thoughts behind. Her breathing has slowed and she rises to her feet a little unsteadily, biting her lip as she makes her way over to her washbowl. The water in it is cold, but it helps to wake her fully. She washes and dresses herself.

Pod will not be here for a while yet, but she is thirsty, so she pulls on her mailshirt and leaves her tent, making her way through the sleeping camp to a fire where she can hear the early moving of pots. Perhaps she will find some warmed water to drink.

When she arrives, Jaime is there. He sees her and smiles at her fondly, jerking his head as an invitation to join him. He pours something from a pot by the fire into a clay cup on the ground and the offers it up to her. At her questioning look, he says, "It's some kind of lemon and herb concoction. Pod was worried we old folk would catch a chill and die," he chuckles. "He told me he got a list of ingredients from Maester Arth."

She grimaces at the thought, but takes the cup anyway and they sit together by the fire. It is still early and there is only them, which feels a touch strange out here in the open. Eventually Jaime speaks, barely loud enough to be heard, even by her. "How did you enjoy the second night?"

She blows gently into the steam rising from her cup and answers him, her own voice soft in the air. "I started with the second...but somehow ended up at the last."

He glances at her, clearly amused. "Admit it," he quietly jests, "you like it when I'm feeling weak."

"No," she says quickly, reaching across to brush her fingers across his for a moment, wanting him to know that she means what she says. "I like it when you feel loved."

/-/-/-/-/

The rolling landscape sees the sombre shape of Winterfell appear and disappear, a smudge on the horizon growing ever larger and more distinct for a half a day before it is fairly fixed in their path. Yet the castle is still too far away. If they pressed on, they could perhaps make it by morning, but keeping such a large body of people on the move in the darkness would risk injuries and Brienne is sure some of the Lannister men would manage to get themselves lost in the attempt.

So she makes the call for camp to be made as night begins to fall.

This order is met with no lack of complaining, but the mood lifts as everybody realizes this will be their last time trying to sleep under canvas for a while. When all is done and the men and women who have travelled so far are happily sat about their fires, Brienne stalks to the edge of the camp, looking at the lights shining from the distant fortress.

_It has been so long since we were last here._

Even under the darkening sky, she can see that the damage war had inflicted on the seat of the Guardians of the North is repaired. It has been years, yes, but for so many of them, Sansa held this place with few men and almost no smallfolk. Brienne considers that it would’ve been a great achievement, had she been a man, but for a young woman, ruling alone and with little means of support, it has been a most remarkable recovery. Her husband hadn’t been able to visit until two years after the war’s end, for the situation in King’s Landing had still been perilously unstable. And his gold meant nothing here. Not then. So Sansa had toiled in Winterfell and even in the fields, Tyrion told her with a pride she hadn’t expected from a Lannister. _“She brought the North back to life,”_ he’d said, _“with her sweat, with her will and with her mind. She will always be the Lady of Winterfell, though I fear I will never truly be Lord of it.”_ Yet he didn’t seem afraid of that fact at all.

To her left, she hears a quiet set of footfalls, though as she looks, she sees she has been joined by two of her dragons. She’d heard Ser Gendry, but his wife, Ser Arya, is as silent in movement as she ever was, taking her place between them. Brienne sees that Arya’s hand rests against Lady, her dagger.

_It is long past time for this._

Brienne’s heart skitters and speeds up, but she doesn’t move her own hands towards her weapons.

They look at Winterfell, all three, and Brienne waits for what seems to be an age. The sky starts to bleed into black above them.

“How did my mother die, my Lady Evenstar?”

“The mother you knew was betrayed and murdered at the Red Wedding, Ser Arya. You know this.”

“And you know that isn’t what I mean.” The words are sharp, angered, cutting through the cooling air.

Brienne can hardly blame her. “Lady Stoneheart died at my hand. A single sword stroke. I took her head.” Though Brienne doesn’t stop looking out towards Winterfell, she can almost feel the younger knight’s fingers undulate over the grip of her short blade as she absorbs this blunt description.

“It was needful?” Brienne glances down and finds Arya looking up at her, her face almost blank.

Brienne holds her gaze, honest, unafraid. “It was unavoidable. What little was left of her was only rage and vengeance. She killed so many. She wouldn’t have stopped.”

Arya takes a deep breath. Whatever she wants to ask next has clearly troubled her for years. “I was told she hanged children.”

“She did,” Brienne says quietly. “Pod was the only child she took prisoner who lived through it, as far as I know.”

This seems to shock her. “I didn’t know about Pod.” Brienne doesn’t understand why she should be so surprised until Arya quickly looks at her husband. _Of course. Gendry._

“He survived her, Arya,” Brienne offers, quiet under newly born stars. “Few did.”

Arya turns back to her, grey eyes serious. “There was no other way.” It isn’t a question.

“There was no other way,” Brienne says in confirmation.

The three of them look back to Winterfell, now only a shadow with just the flicker of torchlight to pick out some of its shape.

“Be careful of my sister, Lady Brienne,” Arya warns, though her tone is lighter now, and Brienne’s shoulders relax under her metal. Her right one still hurts, nonetheless. She hasn’t been thrown from a horse for some years and even if she has always known how to fall, it is the damage to her armour that is hurting her now. There has been simply no time to have it mended on the road. She listens as Arya continues. “Sansa will use tears and emotions to get her way. But she is far cleverer than she would have you believe.” The youngest Stark sister smiles. “Though I’d rather you didn’t tell her I said so.”

“I won’t,” Brienne replies. “And I know her well enough. She is no ordinary woman. But she lacks our weapons, so she must use her own. And perhaps we lack hers.”

This is met with ringing laughter. “Speak for yourself, my Lady,” Arya says. “Thank you.”

Brienne watches Ser Arya drag her husband away, sharing a slightly apologetic look with the knightsmith. She has a feeling he is about to be roundly lectured on the merits of sharing important details about friends.

She finds her eyes drawn back to their destination, but she doesn’t look at it for long before she hears far more familiar footsteps come to a stop beside her. “It’s about time you had that talk,” Jaime chides. “And I don’t see any daggers in your ribs. How did it go?”

“Better than I thought it would.”

“Good,” he says and pauses. “We’ve broken the back of this journey now, Brienne.”

“Yes. We have, Jaime. We’ll be heading home soon.”

“Not soon enough, if you ask me,” he chuckles. Slowly, he looks at her and she looks at him. His eyes are bright in the darkness as he quietly adds, “But then…”

No more is needed.

_We can be together again._

“Then,” she promises.

_We can be ourselves._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be called 'The Lady of Winterfell'. It will be posted on Saturday, the 12th of July. Best wishes.


	17. The Lady of Winterfell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> REPOST. The war is over. Some of them hadn’t thought that they would outlive it. And yet...
> 
>   
> Banner by [Ro Nordmann](http://ro-little-shop-of-wonders.tumblr.com)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks must, as ever, be offered to RoseHeart, who is a wonderful beta, writer and friend. Also to Nurdles, for her patient listening. And to Lady_in_Red for an interesting perspective, which has been useful here - and for picking up on a bit of an error. ;)
> 
> Disclaimer: I own it not.
> 
> CHAPTER WARNING: there is a mention of miscarriage in this chapter. Please be aware.

 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: THE LADY OF WINTERFELL

 

Sansa sighs a little wearily as she stands amidst the near chaos in the yard of Winterfell, whilst they await the arrival of her husband. "Jon," she says, her tone brooking no argument from the small boy with red hair, "go and fetch your sister."

"But, mother..."

" _Now_ please, Jon," she interrupts. "I think she has taken her wooden sword and is hiding again."

Her fourth son grimaces at her before he dashes off in the direction of the family chambers. No doubt Joanna is still unhappy. Though she is recovered from the soreness in her ear that has been blighting her for more than a fortnight, the cheerful temper of her youngest child has not quite yet returned.

Sansa thinks, with some fondness, of the day so long ago, when Arya had been unhappily found and made to wait with her family in this place, to greet King Robert Baratheon.

_How differently I saw the world then. How different it was._

They say nothing for some time, but then Sansa turns to her eldest son, Robb, standing next to her in a silence far too weighty for one so young. "You aren't nervous, are you?" she asks.

Robb looks up at her, grey eyes calm. "No, I always look forward to seeing Father." Sansa runs her fingers fondly through his curls, so much like his long-dead uncle's, only spun from gold. Tyrion is absent so much that their firstborn takes his role as the oldest male at Winterfell with utmost seriousness.

"He will be pleased to see you too," she reassures him. Then, she leans forward a little to address the lad on the other side of Robb. "Rickon, please hide your book."

The next eldest Stark boy doesn't lift his gaze from the little tome in his stubby hands. "I will when they arrive, Mother," he replies, turning over another page. Sansa smiles at it. Rickon may be stunted in growth, like his father, but the Gods had also seen fit to grant him Tyrion's mind. He blows an overlong lock of red hair from in front of his nose and carries on reading.

As the unmistakable noise of a travelling mass of horses draws closer outside of the walls, Jon pulls Joanna out of a small doorway, holding her wrist and trying to make her move with a touch more speed. He isn't too hard on her. For all that they argue, Jon protects Joanna from much of the teasing she would get from others. She looks very much like her father, also inheriting his small stature, but where he and Rickon have blade-sharp minds, Joanna is normally only filled with kindness.

Not so today. As she drags her feet and scowls, she sucks on one thumb and she keeps wriggling a tiny fist, trying to hit Jon with the tip of her play sword, though he just tightens his grip on her wrist, foiling her plans. "She was hiding under cook's chair in the kitchens again," he mutters, letting go of his sister in front of Sansa after no small amount of stubborn resistance on her part. Having lost this small battle, Joanna looks up at her pitifully, her eyes puffy. Sansa lifts her and holds her on her hip, though she is really getting too heavy for it, as their visitors walk their horses through the gate.

Her husband comes first and he smiles at her even as he guides his horse over to the small, raised platform onto which he'll dismount. Sansa smiles back. For all that their marriage was unwanted by them both, they have long since settled into a warm acceptance of it. He has never been unkind to her and if his absences from the North are long, she knows it is only because he is working so far away, to keep them safe here. For her part, Sansa has always been firm that she will never travel south again and Tyrion has assured her he wouldn't ask her to do any such thing. He walks across to her. "My lady wife. How goes the North?"

"Well," she replies, taking in the mud covering him up to his knees, "though we had some heavy rain last night."

Tyrion chuckles. "That I saw. And how is our daughter?" Joanna, aware that she is being discussed, buries her face shyly into Sansa's hair. If Tyrion is hurt at all by this, he doesn't let it show as Sansa tells him of her recent illness. He accepts their youngest children not knowing him as a price he must pay to ensure their security. Joanna will overcome this in days. The father of Sansa's children has proven surprisingly gifted with them. He exchanges a few serious words with Robb and asks Rickon to show him his book, which he knows is hidden within the confines of a short grey cloak.

As Tyrion reacquaints himself with his heirs, Sansa watches as the dragons, who have travelled with him on his long journey, begin to drop from their horses. Arya is in front of her in moments, as if from nowhere, gazing at her critically. "You've grown fat, sister," she says bluntly, not meaning it at all.

If anything, Sansa knows the rigours of life here have made her a little thinner and more severe in appearance, despite her bearing children. "And you still haven't found any manners," she says, finding both herself and Joanna wrapped in metal clad arms. Joanna giggles at the chill and looks down at her aunt in wonder, even if she can't quite bring herself to speak yet.

Shouts erupt across the yard and Sansa glances over in alarm as a female smallholder weeps openly, only to be smothered in the arms of two huge, blue-cloaked knights. "Sers Karyl and Daryk," Arya whispers. "Both were knighted before we left Tarth. I think they will remain here now."

Robb speaks quietly from his place at her side. "If we are to celebrate our new arrivals, should we invite their mother?" Sansa agrees and he makes his way over to offer the older woman a place at their table.

"He looks so much like Robb," Arya says as he gives the lonely hill farmer the welcome of Winterfell.

"He _is_ Robb," a small voice pipes up, and Joanna begins to wriggle against Sansa, clearly wanting to be let down to the ground. She does so reluctantly, unsure of what has caught her daughter's attention now, but her worry is almost unfounded. Short legs make fast work of narrowing the gap between Joanna and the fast approaching Evenstar and they make a strange sight, the under-grown girl with a tiny wooden sword and the huge mass of the famed warrior woman of Tarth, stopped in front of one another.

"Are you the Evenstar?" Joanna asks, unafraid, though it must feel as if she is peering up at the Wall. Sansa experiences a quiet pang as she realises it will always be so for her youngest child.

"I am she," Brienne answers. For a minute they stare at each other quite solemnly, but then Joanna holds out her arms, wanting to be picked up again. The Lady doesn't hesitate, though Sansa is sure she sees the Evenstar wince in discomfort as her daughter is borne up carefully to be held against blue metal.

_I will warn the Maester, though Brienne will surely be stubborn about seeing him._

By the time the ruler of Tarth gets to Sansa, Joanna is happily using her sword to bang on the most well-known armour in the world and the Evenstar looks a touch pained at being rung like a bell at the end of such a long journey. Sansa is about to formally greet her, but Joanna, knowing nothing of these things, decides to take matters into her own hands. She pauses in her efforts to overcome metal plate. "Jaime said I can't be the Evenstar," she chirps happily upwards.

Brienne blinks as she is attacked once more. "Did he now? And which of your brothers is Jaime?"

Sansa tries not to laugh as Joanna twists around in Brienne's arms. The youngest Stark points with her sword. "With father."

The Lady of Winterfell watches the Evenstar carefully as she glances toward their middle child. Tyrion, who was far off in King's Landing at the time of his birth, had chosen this son's name, the first time she had let him do so for one of their babes. And it turns out that he couldn't have picked anything more appropriate. For at the end of their little family group, bored and itching to be playing with his own blunt metal sword with his friends, stands eight year old Jaime Stark. He is every inch the lion, all golden hair and green eyes, and his skin has soaked in what little sun can be found this far north, so he carries less pallor than his siblings.

Brienne's mouth falls open as Ser Jaime of Tarth steps up to them. "Goodsister," he says, nodding at Sansa before he notices the Evenstar's expression.

"I thought there were no men like you, Ser Jaime?" she mutters, obviously amused, distracting Joanna from a resumption of hostilities on her person by tickling her nose.

The First Knight of Tarth laughs at the sight of his brother and his nephew. "He's a _boy_ , my Lady."

At his brother's voice, Tyrion turns to them. "At least now it's clear why the Gods should have afflicted me so," Tyrion says. "Imagine our father's pain, had his second son been the golden one."

There is much warmth in their gathering, as more guests come. Sansa finds it strange to be called aunt by Ser Myrcella, who, despite her scarring, resembles her mother so closely, but finds nothing but a guarded friendliness in her. As further greetings flow easily back and forth, she notes that even now, so many years on from the Winter War, there is a light formality, a small distance between the Evenstar and her knight that Tyrion has called unneeded and unfair.

_We shall see to that soon enough._

The first rush of people begins to settle. She asks Robb to ensure that the mother of Daryk and Karyl continues to feel welcome and Jon to take Joanna to their father for a little while. With a promise of being allowed to ask Tyrion about the Queen's dragons, she is set on her feet and she trails off happily enough, grasping her brother's hand.

Sansa turns to her guests from Tarth. "I have readied some rooms for you," she offers. "Please come with me."

/-/-/-/-/

Brienne stands by the table in a familiar room from so long ago, the night air chilly on her skin.

_I think this might be the very same washbowl._

She remembers when they had said goodbye in this room, though it wasn’t goodbye. They simply hadn’t known it yet.

 _How much we would’ve missed, had I been unable to make him speak_.

She rubs her skin with a brush and a damp cloth, removing what feels like a barrow load of caked on dirt. Half the Kingsroad, making her grey and sore.

She takes her time as she waits for him, hidden freckles reappearing whilst she muses on the works of Sansa Stark. How they had risen up on the oddly square stone staircase held within this short tower some hours ago, each step seeming slightly higher than the last after their travels. Sansa had quartered a few of the Lannister men in the lower rooms, but they traipsed up to the top two floors and there was something new. Something that hadn’t been there before.

As the five dragons still in her company made their way past her, the Stark noblewoman had halted them. And closed a door.

Behind it, two identical keys hung on hooks and she took one of them. “There are four rooms remaining. This door can be locked and unlocked from the inside as well as the outside. I would suggest you secure it before sleeping each night. Arya and Gendry are in our family chambers. Sers Daryk and Karyl will be staying with their mother. But you unattached dragons have a certain reputation. I think it best for us all if we quarter you separately from everybody else, and I thought that Ser Jaime and Lady Brienne would like the rooms they stayed in the last time they were here.”

Her eyes had blazed with absolute sincerity as she lied through her teeth for them. How Brienne’s heart had thudded at her gesture. The Lady of Winterfell has created a space within her own home, so that they can be themselves.

After a short pause, Myrie and Anara just clattered into the nearest chamber, the sharply shutting door causing Sansa to look confused for a moment. But then realization set in and her mouth dropped open. “Oh,” she said, “Tyrion didn’t tell me about _that_.”

Shock and the struggle not to to ask questions turned into happiness though and she made to leave, obviously pleased that her plan had been even better than she’d known. “We are eating soon, so don’t be long. The maids will be sent in at midday.”

She was gone in an elegant swirl of plain skirts and Brienne, Jaime, and Pod had been left standing there, bemused. Jaime broke the silence, laughing gruffly. “I wish we could hide in a chamber, my Lady, but I think we would be missed. Perhaps later?”

“Yes,” she simply answered. “Later. Pod. Help Jaime out of his armour.” Podrick had been nothing but smiles as he followed her knight into his chamber, so pleased was he for them both.

And now it is later.

Food has been had and time has been spent doing all of the small things that the Evenstar must, even when not on Tarth. Jaime had somehow found the time to wash, maybe when Pod was helping her out of her own metal and fussing over her shoulder, but Brienne sat through all the pleasantries desperately wanting to feel clean. With one last sweep of the cloth over her neck, she closes her eyes and enjoys the sensation at last.

She hears the door open and close again, but doesn’t look, just letting the knot she has been carrying inside her for such a long time loosen and disappear like a wisp of smoke. _He is here_.

“I’ve decided I quite like it when the Lady of Winterfell decides to meddle.” Jaime’s voice is soft in the evening air, full of remembrance.

She lets herself gaze at him leaning against the back of the door. “It took you long enough.”

For a few long breaths, they are still, just drinking in the sight of each other. It is as if they are scared that this hope of some time together might be taken. But then Jaime moves, shaking himself out of his tunic as he comes to her, wrapping his arms around her as he rests his lips on her neck.

Yet in the very moment she feels utterly complete, herself, he freezes against her, feeling the welts on her shoulder. “Brienne. What’s this?”

/-/-/-/-/

The soft chant of his name, repeated, falls away and they lie together in silence, holding each other so tightly that it is hard to tell where either one of them begins or ends. Rasping breaths ease and slow, the hurried rise and fall of her ribcage next to him gentling into sated relaxation in a little more time than his own.

He is still inside her, barely now, limp and tender and spent in her heat, but he doesn’t want to leave. So he pushes forward, trying to reclaim more ground inside her body. Failing, even as she rocks her hips and pulls him in with her calf, wanting him to stay too, though he is unable. She is tight and flickering around him again and it births a new warm ball of pleasure in the small of his back, in the very moment he slips away and is gone.

They both sigh, happily unhappily, eyes half-lidded and dark. The tip of him slides down across her thigh, and every nerve-ending in him seems to scream. The wetness coating him is instantly chilled by the night air, dragging a moan from his throat. Brienne knows and pulls him close once more, keeping him warm against her.

She laughs, low and husky, a sound only for him and one that he wonders how he ever managed to live without hearing. A hand lifts to his beard and she strokes it, as is her wont. “I’ve missed you, Jaime,” she whispers, smiling.

“I’m not sure how,” he says, half-surprised that he can find his voice at all, strange as it is in his ears. His words come lazily. “I’m the bearded fellow who’s been following you all over Westeros for an age. The one by the campfire. Often tries to steal your dinner.”

“Oh,” she mutters, as if in quiet recognition. “I remember you, now.” Her eyes catch him and hold him.

He nudges her long since broken nose with his own. “I’ve missed you too, Brienne.” He kisses her. She tastes of the summer fruit pie they had been offered in the Great Hall earlier.

But his lips taste of her.

/-/-/-/-/

“…care, love, you shouldn’t be bleeding for the sake of appearances. Don’t wear your armour for a few days. Let these welts heal. It’ll give you some time to get your mail fixed and your arming doublet re-padded.” Brienne’s breath hisses out sharply through her teeth when Jaime dips a finger into the small pot in her left hand and gently rubs some salve into the wound snaking its way over her right shoulder.

Tyrion can only stand and gape, stunned into immobility in the doorway, the tray he is holding almost forgotten as he watches the two knights, both currently only in their breeches and facing away from him. Their backs are the same in the strangest of ways, covered by skin marked with so many signs of war, like thrice-crumpled parchment which has been flattened out over flesh. He isn’t quite sure how they didn’t hear him open the door, but there is a quiet intensity in the air and he supposes that they are both too absorbed in the Evenstar’s hurt to have noticed his presence. “I can’t show weakness, Jaime. Even here.”

His brother huffs, but speaks fondly. “You’ll look a damned sight weaker when your right arm falls off, wench. Stop being so stubborn.” He presses a quick kiss to the back of Brienne’s neck, making her sigh in a womanly manner, which is utterly strange to Tyrion's ears. “There. That should do it.”

“I don’t think a few grazes from my armour are going to make my arm fall off, idiot,” Brienne says, her unseen smile clear in her voice as she shakes out her arm. “But I’ll stick to my riding leathers for a few days. If it’ll stop you whining.”

“Whining?” Jaime laughs. 

“Isn’t that what they’re calling you these days? The Whining Knight?” She rolls her injured shoulder with a slightly pained sigh. “Thank you, Jaime. I…” She swings about, sees Tyrion, who is still transfixed by the ease between them and pulls Jaime to her with what can only be described as a yelp, clamping him against the front of her body with her left arm.

“Again, Brienne? Are you trying to kill m…,” Jaime breaks off as he sees the panic in his love and reads it. He groans unhappily, not even turning his head before he speaks again. “Tyrion. Close the fucking door.”

Tyrion is galvanised into movement, even as he wonders, as he ever has, at their ability to communicate so much with so little. He awkwardly closes the door with his elbow and walks towards the rickety little table under the window, for some reason even he can’t fathom, still intent on leaving them their food. His brother’s voice follows him, dry and not a little irritated. “I believe you clever enough to know that you're now on the wrong side of it, brother mine.”

“I’m sorry, Jaime. Brienne. I’ll go.” Tyrion turns, but instead of simply leaving, he finds himself staring once more. Brienne can’t even look at him, her skin beet red even where her torso is pressed firmly against Jaime’s. But it isn’t this that has so caught his attention.

It is their arms, hanging close together, that shock him. There is a clear, but pale horizontal slash that runs counter to most of the scarring that mars his brother’s stump, halfway down his forearm. It is matched by an identical mark at the same height, on the left forearm of the Evenstar. “That was a single sword stroke,” Tyrion says quietly, his mind reeling at the idea that they are bound by scars even more tightly than he had known.

“Yes, Tyrion,” Jaime bites, his gaze flicking downwards. “We fought side by side. Back to back. Many of our scars are paired. We fought together, we bled together. And you are still _here._ ”

Tyrion wants to move, but his feet won’t take him, his mind tying together more and more marks on their bodies, finally seeing how much they had been forced to endure in the Long Night.

“If you will not go, can you at least look away for a moment?” Brienne’s voice is pained and Tyrion is suddenly overcome by the shame of this intrusion. He doesn’t answer, simply slapping his hands over his eyes like a child playing hide and seek. Jaime chuckles and Tyrion hears the two warriors moving and Brienne pulling on some kind of clothing.

“You can open your eyes now, Tyrion,” Brienne says softly, though as his hands fall away from his face, he can see she remains embarrassed, even if the red on her skin is lessened. She is wearing what appears to be one of Jaime’s undershirts, the neck untied and she is holding the pale textile away from her hurt.

His brother is at the table, ignoring the food and picking through a pile of material. He chooses a few pieces and makes his way back over to Brienne in silence, dropping them next to her on the mattress where she is sitting. He selects the largest piece and gently positions it under the shirt, over her wound. She nods and what follows seems like a dance, hands moving in time as a long piece of linen is wrapped around her shoulder, all the while somehow without revealing too much of the Lady’s skin.

“This would be easier without an audience,” Jaime mutters at one point.

“I’m sorry,” Tyrion says. “I just…I never knew. I didn’t know how bad it was.”

Green eyes turn his way and could cut him, were it willed. “You knew, Tyrion. You just didn’t want to believe it.”

“Perhaps.” Tyrion watches as they finish dressing her wound and finds himself stunned once more by a moment that seems more intimate, to him, than anything else he has just witnessed. Once the long linen bandage is in place, they tie the ends of it together, each using one hand in movements so deft and practised that Tyrion quakes at the thought of the number of times they must have been forced to do this at the Wall. He has to clear his throat before he can speak again. “Jaime is right, my lady. You shouldn’t wear your armour for a while.”

His older brother scowls at him. “Just how bloody long were you standing there?” But then he looks down at Brienne with a grin. “I hope it wasn’t for an hour or so. Now _that_ would be embarrassing.”

“Jaime. _Stop_.” Brienne seems almost panicked for a moment, but Jaime simply reaches out and tucks a pale blonde lock behind her ear.

“Don’t fret, Brienne. He’s known about us for years. More or less.” Panic shifts into a flash of anger in the lady, but Jaime forestalls it. “I didn’t want to worry you. But he guessed when he saw the paneling in my chamber.”

“He did?” She sighs wearily and rolls her eyes. “Of _course_ he did.” Tyrion finds himself instantly pinned by extraordinary blue eyes. “Then why in the seven hells didn’t you knock?”

Tyrion just shrugs at her nonchalantly. “I thought you knew by now. Lannisters don’t knock.”

“Well I would suggest you try in the future,” she smiles. “I have a very sharp sword.”

They all laugh, but then Jaime makes a request. “Tyrion, look away again. I need my shirt back. I have to go and roll about on my bed a bit. You know, muss the covers a little before the maids arrive.”

Tyrion shakes his head. “No need. I left Sansa jumping on it.” Two old warriors look at him in disbelief, their faces contorting as they try to imagine the graceful Lady of Winterfell indulging in such a pastime. Tyrion smiles. “Her childhood was bleak. Sometimes she enjoys a bit of youthful endeavour and who am I to deny her?”

/-/-/-/-/

“I don’t know why you’re so surprised, husband. Did you expect them to be swordfighting, when they are on their own? Or perhaps slaying dragons, in their tiny chamber?”

Tyrion looks up from his book, watching her climb onto the bed, beneath the blankets that cover him. “I don’t know. Brienne was so much gentler than I’d thought. And there was such a warmth between them. It felt very special. Very right.”

“Of course it is.” Sansa smiles up at him from her pillow as she settles herself next to her husband. She is pleased he is awake, for last night he’d fallen into a deep, weary sleep within moments of coming to their bed. “They’ve loved each other since before they rescued me, and Brienne knew it back then, I’m sure of it. Even if your brother didn’t. Though as you know, men are stupid about a great many things.”

Tyrion’s scarred face twists in humour as he looks down at her and Sansa remembers that, a long time ago, it would’ve scared her. That time is long past. “So says the woman who only came to care for her husband years after he started pining for her,” he says.

She rests her hand over his, on the open book. “I like it when you pine for me.”

“And so I do.” He lifts her fingers briefly to his mouth, sparing her a small kiss as he closes the leather-bound volume with his other hand and shifts it to table by the bed. He doesn’t let go of her though, and Sansa finds him stroking her palm, his brow taut with concern. “Are you recovered?” he asks.

She blanches at a sharp flash of memory. Of pain, come too soon, of blood, and of a daughter, born small and blue and dead. Catelyn Stark was never to live again, even as another. “Yes, Tyrion. It’s been nearly a year.”

Short, strong fingers run over her face, and she can see he is filled with with regret. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you. That I’ve never been here.”

“You are keeping us safe,” she reassures him. “And the birthing chamber is a woman’s battleground. I don’t think it would suit you.” She smiles at him. “Books are no good there.”

Tyrion shrugs in wry acceptance of her reasoning and moves until he is kneeling at her side. He reaches out, with only care, and places his hand on her long nightshift. It makes her flinch and want to move away, but not because of any revulsion at his touch. Though she is, for the most part, very thin, years of bearing babes have taken their toll, leaving her breasts saggy and the skin on her belly loose. Under her dresses, it cannot be seen, but every time her husband comes to the North, her body has changed for the worse and she feels less like herself. Yet every time, Tyrion tells her that he simply doesn’t care.

He does so now, if anything more firmly than he has ever done before. “Don’t, Sansa. If I wanted a flat belly and firm tits I could buy time with them, if I wished it. I don't. I only want _you_.” He leans down and presses a kiss to the place she hates so much, folds of skin where unborn babes once slept. “You’ve made us six beautiful children in your body and I happen to like it.” He rests his head there and grins up at her. “Besides, look at me, wife. I’m hardly in a position to make judgements on your form.”

Sansa laughs, happiness mingled with relief, and reaches down to play with his hair in gentle invitation. “Your form isn’t so bad, husband. In parts, it is quite pleasing.”

/-/-/-/-/

"I don't give a dusty fuck, Tyrion, if you go into her chamber just once more, I won't stop her from hurting you," Jaime whispers.

"Oh, are you using that phrase again? How quaint," Tyrion says, leering up at him. "Though I hope, for the lady's sake, it is anything other than..."

"Don't," Jaime warns, glancing about them in alarm. When he looks back to his brother again, the face peering up at him has settled into a state of pity which has appeared, on occasion, for most of Tyrion's life. It claws at Jaime, this pity, because it is for what has always been his weakness, whilst being what he felt the most. What Tyrion could enjoy openly, had he but the chance to spend any real time in the North, Jaime has seen more of, without ever being able to share it. _"Don't,"_ he says again, a hiss through teeth. A plea.

They walk along in silence, into the small reading room and sit in front of the cold fire. Once they are alone, Tyrion continues. "You need not fear, Jaime. I never spoke of Cersei, and nor will I of Brienne. I am less inclined to do so, in any case. I actually like Brienne."

Jaime smiles at his brother and shakes his head. "You do, don't you?" He considers the two women who have held his heart. There is a clear difference in his mind. "I don't think...I don't think Brienne would ever do anything I could hate."

"Fucking Kettleblacks?"

Jaime sighs in resignation. His brother, for his many words, can savage a man with barely any at all. "That hurt, it's true. But I began to see what Cersei was willing to do to cling onto power before that. She became ruthless."

Tyrion lets out a sharp laugh. "We are all ruthless, brother. The Gods know you are. At one time, you were the worst of us all. Even your warrior woman is ruthless. She laid waste to Meereen, you know. The Queen was very impressed with her work, which is rather a daunting measure of it. I think you like your women with backbone."

"That may be so," Jaime says, "but they are not the same."

"I would never think they were," Tyrion replies. "As I said before, I like your Evenstar. And you're right. I think Brienne would hack off her own right hand before doing anything that would bring you unhappiness or shame. Or, more importantly with that last, herself."

"That might be it," Jaime says quietly, scuffing the toe of his boot against the edge of the stone hearth. "I really don't think I could ever be ashamed of her."

"Don't try to fool yourself, Jaime," Tyrion mutters, his tone short. "You weren't ashamed of Cersei until the bitter end. And in looking at her, some might say you _should_ be ashamed of Brienne."

"They would be wrong." The words fall from Jaime as hammerblows and Tyrion grins at him happily, tapping his fingers on the wooden arm of his reading chair.

"Well, brother, that's all I needed to know."

Jaime chuckles at the familiar moment of confusion in him that has arisen, now and then, in the company of his brother. He has been maneuvered into spilling information yet again. "I'm glad you like _me_ ," Jaime says wryly. "If you didn't, I..."

The door opens and the Stark sisters spill into the room, a sudden wave of light mirth tumbling in with them. "You did not!" Arya snorts, her eyes bright with happiness. "You took it from me and put it in the fire, because I wouldn't brush your hair."

"It was mine in the first place!" Sansa insists. "You stole it from me when I tried to rescue you from one of Old Nan's stories."

They pause a few steps in when they see Tyrion is not alone. "Husband," Sansa says, "you wanted to know when we were returned from the Godswood."

"And here you are," Tyrion says fondly. They smile and Jaime is glad for his brother.

They had talked earlier, at some length, of Tyrion and Sansa's relationship. Of how difficult it had been at first, how Tyrion's bitterness and his own shame over Tysha and Shae had darkened things between them. It hadn't been helped by his looks, 'or lack thereof', as Tyrion bluntly described them.

The constant separations had been a cause for some unrest too, with Sansa finding it hard to adjust every time she has found her husband back in her bed. It is understandable, Jaime supposes, for she has spent so much of their marriage alone. But she has done her duty, providing strong children and holding the North in a manner in which he would not have thought her capable, in her youth. And she is still a fine figure of a woman, Jaime thinks, though it matters little to him or, he suspects, to the lady's husband. All in all, Tyrion has been very lucky indeed, and he believes his brother is well aware of it.

"How was your brother?" Jaime asks.

Arya grins at him. "Talking a lot more than I remembered. He was wondering why you haven't visited yet."

Sansa giggles at that. "He may have spoken to Bran on Tarth, sister, but the feared Ser Jaime may be a little wary of visiting him here, after the last time."

Arya glances at him curiously. "Why?"

"I've told you before, Arya," Jaime reminds her. "Let's just say that the last time I went to the Godswood here, a frankly alarming number of tree branches began to fall. Onto me,"Jaime says to the Little Wolf. "I'm sure it was a coincidence, though," he sniffs.

"It was no such thing!" Sansa objects.

"I thought you were jesting with me!" Arya tells him. She looks very impressed, and not at all concerned for Jaime, which seems about right, in his experience. "Bran really can do that?" she asks her sister. "He can _aim_ them?"

"Oh, he's so good at it. You should have seen Jaime, Arya," Sansa says, waving her fingers in front of her face. "He was completely covered in scratches. Oh, and when he was rolling about, trying to avoid being hit, he was like a fish out of water!"

The sisters dissolve into yet more laughter, whilst the brothers look at each other in resignation. "I'll make sure I get the younger one back to Tarth as soon as I can," Jaime suggests.

"It's probably for the best," Tyrion agrees. "I can see the North falling, if they stay together for too long."

/-/-/-/-/

The nights fly past in warmth and love, yet the days seem to drag.

It is not that Brienne mislikes Winterfell, or any of those in it, but she has only spent one moon at home in more than one and a half years and she misses it. She has sent further orders to Tarth since her arrival, and found a whole pile of letters waiting for her, written in Ser Charro's hand but signed by Ser Kholo, with news of her small island. All is well there.

She has taken to wearing the protection of boiled leathers over her softer riding ones. It would seem that Joanna will never tire of being carried around on Brienne's hip, all the while hitting her with her wooden sword. There have been attempts to make her stop, but the young lady is not for turning from her task, it would seem. So it is today.

"I wouldn't recommend it, Joanna," Brienne says. "I don't think Drogon would like it if you hit him with your sword."

"But aren't we supposed to kill dragons?"

"Not these ones. Do you think the Queen would like it if you killed her children?" Joanna's sword falls blessedly still as she considers this important question, though Brienne knows the respite will be short. She doesn't mind, and takes the opportunity to walk out into the yard whilst a wildly waving sword is less likely to hit a passing servant.

It is a sunny afternoon, and quite a mild one at that. Brienne settles herself against the wooden fence of the pigpen, basking in the northern sunshine, and waits for the inevitable.

Across the yard is Jaime. He has taken to whiling away as many hours as he can in between their time alone stealing his brother's sons away from their lessons, to teach them of the sword. If it hurts her, to see the man she loves playing with children, it is never for long.

_We have family enough, both here and in the Narrow Sea._

Robb, Jon and Jaime are enthusiastic in their study, even if more often than not Rickon waits for the first possible moment to escape back to his tutors and his beloved books.

Jaime, in particular, is very gifted, though at first he had been unimpressed with his older namesake, especially when he'd found out that he hadn't even brought his golden hand to Winterfell for them to see.

A short, sharp spell of the Evenstar sparring with the First Knight of Tarth had put paid to his disappointment in mere moments. He has now become Ser Jaime's most devoted nephew, following him all day and insisting on learning the small things, from Pod, that a squire might have to do. Brienne has a feeling that, given a few years, the child may well be heading for Tarth.

Sansa comes out to stand by her side, and runs her fingers through Joanna's hair. Since their stay began, Brienne has noticed a change in the Lady of Winterfell. It is not that she is any less warm and welcoming, but that there is a part of her that is guarded, quietly watching her visitors.

_She knows there is something going on._

Brienne has no time to reflect on it further as Joanna's endless assault of her chest resumes with a loud slap of wood on leather. It catches her Jaime's attention and he looks across, grimacing in sympathy. He'll check for new bruising, later on, though there will be little to find, and Brienne is sure it is merely an excuse, in any case. Not that she minds.

At the new sound, the boys realize she is there and start to shout enthusiastically. Jon runs across and tries to pull at Joanna. "Mother, will you take her? We want to see the Evenstar and Ser Jaime spar again!"

Once Joanna is deposited safely in Sansa's arms, Brienne wanders across to her nearly husband. "Well, if I am going to be bruised...", she mutters.

"It's more likely you'll have to check me," Jaime says under his breath and Brienne laughs, even as they are both handed tiny tourney swords, the sort she would only normally give to the youngest of those training on Tarth.

Hers feels feather light in her grip. "Do you think we're being tested, Ser?"

He looks at his left hand in amusement for a moment, but then shrugs and drops into his guard. "Should be interesting. Care to dance, my Lady Evenstar?"

/-/-/-/-/

Brienne can see the wind blow over the terrain well from this vantage point. The surrounding grasslands and low lying scrubs flatten and roll like waves on the sea, parts made light and dark, shifting across the surface of the land. It looks gentle, as if giant invisible fingertips are gently stroking the earth in the way she might a weak foal, encouraging it to live. Yet the gusts that arrive atop the walls of Winterfell have a hidden bite, the chill warning of the end of summer, bringing the promise of the cold yet to come.

In truth, it is a time she dreads, for she knows she will be separated from Jaime again. She doesn't know how she will cope with another long night without him by her side, without his support and constant companionship. She offers a few muttered words to the Warrior, for surely now she belongs to him as to no other God, praying for the sharpness of ice to stay north of the Wall for a while yet.

So immersed is she in the wildness of the landscape and the bleakness of her thoughts that she barely hears Sansa until she is standing at her side. It is foolish for a soldier to be so inattentive and Brienne imagines Ser Charro berating her for such carelessness, even as she turns to the Lady of Winterfell.

The sight of her tightens Brienne's throat.

 _There is a great deal of her mother in her_.

She is too tall and thin to be the very image of Catelyn Stark, it is true. But the older woman had not had to rule the North alone, nor had she been forced to work the fields and rebuild the lands with her own bare hands in the way that has left her daughter gaunt and careworn, if still achingly beautiful. And Sansa, standing wrapped in a woolen shawl underneath her heavy cloak, carries so much of the air of her mother about her that it almost hurts to see.

Her gaze is deeply measuring. She is not here to exchange pleasantries. Brienne watches and waits for Sansa to speak.

“I know what is happening, my Lady Evenstar.”

She takes in the worry shrouding Sansa, her pale eyes bright with concern for those she loves, and Brienne pushes her own natural spike of fear for her own love aside. Her relationship with Jaime is not what is being spoken of here. Caution must be shown. “Your husband?” Brienne quietly asks.

Sansa shakes her head. “He won’t even let himself think of it, I believe.”

“That doesn’t _sound_ like Tyrion,” Brienne offers with a small grin, though Sansa's replying one falls from her after just a moment. The enormity of this all is heavy on the Lady.

“No. But would you want to?” Sansa looks out across the harsh beauty of her homeland, deep in thought. “There must be a reason for him not being told?”

“His reaction must be genuine," Brienne whispers, though there is no need for it here. They are alone. "Elsewise, the other nobles may suspect a Lannister plot.”

Sansa blows out a weary breath, puffing out her cheeks. They both know there is nothing Tyrion Lannister would want less than a kingdom. “And this must happen?”

Brienne wants to give more information than she can. “It will become…needful.”

She can see Sansa mouth 'the queen is dying' to herself. Brienne says and does nothing in response. It is obvious it isn't needed. Sansa moves from the side of the wall facing the outside world to rest her palms on the other, overlooking her babes as they play in the yard. Jon is pretending to battle fiercely with Joanna, allowing her to fell him with a roar and a light tap to his knee with her wooden sword. Robb and young Jaime are battling each other and some of the children of the smallfolk with sticks.

“How long do I have left with Robb?” Those words are filled with the pain of a mother. Brienne aches for Sansa.

“Perhaps a decade at most. Tyrion will be gone for good far sooner.”

This seems to provide some relief to the Lady of Winterfell, even if there is a short flicker of distress at the news of her husband. She may well have been fearing she would lose her firstborn before he was a man full grown, too. Still, there are understandable doubts in her. “I fear for him. For my children. I do not want this for any of them.”

“There are few good choices, I think. This is the best of them.”

Then, finally, Sansa smiles truly, if only a touch. “I had wondered about all the tutors. They were falling onto Winterfell like snow, at one point." Brienne tilts her head, curious as to the point being made. "It is how I began to see it, Brienne. Children born to rule the North have no need to learn the laws of the South and the customs of the East.” Her features grow grim again. “What of our safety?”

“I’ve already sent a raven to Castle Black. Fifty blue cloaks will be here before the decision is announced. And there are more dragons to come. Do you have the supplies to keep a large body of men?”

“Our stores are full, Brienne. And Tyrion?”

“From now on, he will always be guarded by some of our best." Brienne covers Sansa's smaller hand with her own, trying to reassure her. "He will be kept safe at all costs.”

Sansa looks up at her with no small measure of warmth. “He will, won’t he?” Brienne nods and Sansa straightens up, curling her arm around the elbow of the Evenstar.

Brienne considers this a signal, an end of the talk of wider things for now, and finds herself in the curious position of strolling arm-in-arm along the walls with the Lady of Winterfell, as if they were childhood friends. “How are you finding your accommodations?” There is no mistaking the knowing humour in Sansa's voice. She is still very pleased with her plan, Brienne believes.

The Evenstar refuses to be drawn, more than is strictly speaking required. “Very comfortable, thank you.”

“It must be difficult for you both, Brienne.”

_A reminder of what she knows. Could she ever use it?_

This momentary suspicion is gone even as it forms, for although she hasn't seen this woman since the end of the Winter War, Brienne is certain Sansa would never choose to bring harm to herself or Jaime, except in the direst of circumstances. “Always. But not as hard as you might think." Brienne tries to distract her. "What of you and your husband? It must be strange for you when he visits.”

Sansa sees straight through her ruse, but laughs, a high ringing sound, and answers anyway. “It used to be. It was _awful._ I thought him repulsive and he thought me an idiot child, I’m sure of it.” She pauses and grows quiet. “But then he came to understand what I had been forced to do to survive. As I did with him.” This serious reflection is only brief, before she laughs again. “And he is not...unskilled, in his own way.”

Brienne simply grimaces, unsure she needs to know this, but now Sansa herself changes the subject. "What of you and Jaime? You can tell me, Brienne, we are close to being sisters. Why, we might have been even when I tried to stab you!" she says brightly. And slyly.

"No," Brienne answers simply. "Not then. You were rather hard to rescue," she says mildly, "but I told you true, on my last visit. And now we are happy." She nudges the Lady of Winterfell gently with her elbow, as if to tease her. It is quite the oddly pleasant idea to her, that of having a living sister, of sorts. "In _our_ own way."

Sansa is delighted by this small lapse in Brienne's formality, but then her gaze becomes speculative. "You know, if things are to be as the Queen intends, perhaps this is one small matter that Tyrion could mend."

Brienne stops walking, a swell of hope rising in her that she cannot bear to believe in. How had she not considered it?

_That we could stop hiding._

She has a momentary glimpse of herself and Jaime, walking along the harbour front at Tarth, just holding hands, with nobody marking it.

_That we could have that._

Reason descends in short order. There is no way any such thing can happen before Tyrion ascends to the Iron Throne and that is years away yet. Still, she holds that new, little flame of hope and stows it away, safe inside. She looks at Sansa in thanks for it.

"Perhaps, but there is no hurry. As I've said, we're happy."

/-/-/-/-/

It is decidedly strange, to be standing in the same place they had so many years ago, when they were willing prisoners, having given themselves up to their fate.

Jaime steals a quick glance at the Evenstar, who seems to be lost in her thoughts. There is an air of impatience about her, as if she just wants them to be on their way. It's a marked contrast to when Brienne woke this morning and she had been as eager as Jaime to hold onto every last moment alone together. They had lain entangled, suffused with a new and shared hope for their future, as what little time they could share slipped through their fingers like dry sand.

Brienne dreads the length of this journey, of their separation, as much as he does, but the mouth he touched and tasted but hours ago is now set into a plump, determined line. The toe of her right boot taps on the cobbles of the yard as she waits for the formal farewell. She looks as if she would will away the many miles between here and home, were she able.

A door opens and his northern family comes spilling out. He has rarely felt truly accepted anywhere but on Tarth, so his fondness for these relatives is welcome. With Genna gone, Jaime had believed he would have nothing to regret leaving behind, when he sails from the mainland for the last time. If he had been told, in his era as the Golden Knight, that the one place he would miss, were he banished in his age, would be Winterfell, how he would've scoffed and thought that the years would dull his wits. Yet so it is.

Brienne shifts next to him, finding the upcoming show of formality tedious and needless, as well he knows. She wants to go to horse and start their journey home. They have already shared their parting words with the Starks of Winterfell inside. Sansa seems to have become quite attached to his nearly wife, and her eyes are red from tears as she attempts to herd her brood into some semblance of order. Young Jaime is being particularly stubborn, and he thinks it is likely that this is because he has been told he can't travel to Tarth, to train for a few years yet. The boy desperately wants to be a dragon warrior.

"At least this time we aren't walking to King's Landing," he quietly offers to Brienne.

It seems to shake her from her imposing state of silence. She looks at him, a pale eyebrow rising. "At least we won't be in chains," she replies, the merest flicker of a smile flitting across her lips.

/-/-/-/-/

At first, hints of the changing of seasons seem to chase them southwards. The leaves on the trees turn and fall, their veins hollow of life, their new colours turned into mulch and soft shushing sounds underneath trudging feet. Winter is coming, for all that its advance seems ponderous, as if the green of life is clinging on, this long summer not willing to loosen its grip on the world just yet.

There is an urgency to their pace that was lacking before. He knows, without being told, that Brienne is starting to feel the press of time on them. She won't risk him outstaying his welcome on the mainland and in truth, Jaime thinks she simply wants an end to this journey they've been made to endure. To go home.

He wants that too.

Jaime found the games played by those in power interesting enough when he had some to wield, but only ever wanted to be involved to protect those he held most dear. He is different now, he realizes, if anything far closer to the ideal of knighthood he dreamt of as a boy, if still lacking some of the better traits he once believed in. All the machinations of politics have been stripped from him, layers of lies and black truths hung out for all to see in the bright daylight. Burned away, leaving only one lie behind, one in which he sees good alone, and nothing else but the sword.

He should, perhaps, think more on the situation of his brother, but Jaime has long since been powerless to protect him. Besides, Tyrion has always found a way to survive, and Brienne has assured Jaime that Winterfell will be heavily garrisoned with blue cloaks soon enough. The lions and wolves of the North will be safe.

They pass Moat Cailin and are travelling the Neck when a gale rolls in over the Three Sisters, building and howling in across the waters of the Bite, bringing the brine of sea air inland to the Kingsroad, along with the lightest fall of snow. It is no true winter storm, for although the wind is cutting, the chill doesn't seep into his old bones as much as it surely could.

Jaime thinks little of it, old habit just seeing him pull his cloak tighter about himself, much as everybody else does. It is only when they stop for the night, the practised setting up of camp made yet swifter by people wanting to find shelter from the cold, that he finds himself struck by something new.

The worst of the weather has passed when he meets Brienne at the edge of the camp. The last few flurries of snow are drifting in the now slowing wind, though her cloak still flaps and cracks in it as she draws to a halt, around ten feet away from him. At first they say nothing, just gazing at one another fondly whilst another swirl of flakes makes its way between them, settling on the massive form of the Evenstar.

She blinks and Jaime finds himself transfixed by a large snowflake melting on her long eyelashes. He watches it become small and disappear, gripped by the need to rake his gaze over her hair, to see the flakes there, a sick feeling twisting his insides. "I will never see snow in your hair again," he whispers, unbidden.

For the longest time, Brienne just looks at him, her jaw clenching and unclenching at his soft words. Her eyes chase over him, seeking any signs of snow she can find, cast into a sudden sadness of her own. She knows it is true, for her as much as for him. They have never really spoken of it, but they are both aware that by the time the rare snows melt onto the warm earth of Tarth, it will be winter again, and Brienne won't be there to see it. She will be in the North again, safeguarding the world of men.

They don't move, simply taking in the sight of water unfreezing on each other. Jaime's fingers twitch with the need to close the gap between them, to brush the last stray flakes from her hair as he had by torchlight, so many years ago, when they were themselves, but not _them_ yet.

Then Brienne ends the silence, her sadness becoming something else. "It might snow tomorrow." She sucks on her large lower lip for a moment and the crow's feet gracing the skin by her eyes deepen in amusement. "Besides, don't you think you've seen enough snow in my hair?"

He knows what she means. Of course he does. In that darkest of nights, bone deep weariness had, on few occasions, driven them to curl up together outside, under furs and blankets. Brienne's hair was shorter then, and always wildly unkempt, so it wasn't unusual for her to wake up with the ends of it frozen into odd shapes where it'd poked out from under their covers. And twice, she'd woken with a headache where snow had settled on her, looking like a babe's bonnet. Jaime smiles. "That was quite amusing."

"For you," she says sternly, though she is smiling too.

The sound of low chatter rises as some men head from their tents in their direction. It spurs Brienne into movement, but as she paces past him, she gently says, "We'll be home soon."

Then she is gone, and Jaime thinks longingly of two small rooms.

/-/-/-/-/

They are at an inn, some days south of the Trident, when a cloak flies through the air and lands on Pod's head. He appears utterly confused as it begins to slide down, covering his face. "Take care of that until we get back to Tarth, will you, Pod?" Jaime shouts, though he can't be seen through a group of the Lannister men.

Brienne's knight squire can be heard muttering, "What's he doing now?" before he pulls himself free of the blue material and places it beside him on the long bench in a heap. He looks past Brienne's shoulder and grimaces. "You took my coin to pay for _that?_ "

Behind her, she hears Jaime say, "Of course I did. I have no wealth of my own, remember?"

Tyrion twists around next to her and hoots outrageously at his brother, slapping his hand on the table. Brienne simply waits until Jaime moves back to reclaim his seat next to Pod, but as he comes into view she ends up shaking her head at him, trying not to smile.

Over his armour, instead of his Tarthian cloak, he now wears another. Of sorts. Threadbare, ragged, and best described as mud-coloured, it is as if he has somehow found the very tattered cloth he wore so many years ago, after they met. “Its previous owner didn’t have a leash, I’m afraid. Still, I couldn’t resist it.” Jaime wraps it around himself as he had done back then and looks at her. “What do you think?”

Brienne slowly folds her fingers around her tankard and gives in, smiling down into it. “Idiot.”

“Come now, my Lady,” he protests, if only mildly, “you know I performed one of my most heroic deeds in just such a garment.”

“A _real_ one?” Tyrion asks, as he starts to calm himself.

Brienne glances at him. “He jumped into the bear pit wearing just such a...,” she pauses, quite unable to find the right word for it, “...rag.”

Jaime pretends an air of wounded offence at this description of his newly acquired article, but is unable to hold onto it. “I thought our final journey together on this stretch of the Kingsroad should be like our first. For old time’s sake. Besides, I want to look as haggard as possible during my last trip to the capital.”

Tyrion looks up at her, a lewd grin twisting his mouth. “Were _you_ wearing rags in the bear pit, Brienne?”

“No. I was in a pink dress.”

If her answer has disappointed him, he lets it pass. “I would have liked to have seen that.”

“No you wouldn’t, Tyrion.”

“Yes, I would,” he insists. “And it’s more than I heard you were wearing. I heard you...”

“Shut up, Tyrion.” So says Pod, attempting not to laugh, because, as he’s told Brienne, any slight to the unwitting future King is too much fun. He thinks they ought to make the most of it and he has certainly tried to, during the course of their travels.

“You really should try to set up some kind of training in manners for your blue cloaks, my Lady Evenstar,” Tyrion comments. “It’s an area in which they seem to be sorely lacking. Or so I’ve noticed, on this journey.”

“I’m not sure how well it would work, Lord Tyrion,” Brienne replies. “Do you think such a thing would have any effect?”

They look at Pod, who appears to be trying to smell a loose corner of Jaime’s new cloak. He drops his head to the table with a groan. “I can’t believe you spent the last of my coin on it.”

“No,” Jaime answers her, fondly ruffling the brown hair of the knight next to him.

/-/-/-/-/

The four of them ride ahead, much to Tyrions' uninformed chagrin, and King's Landing seems strangely quiet when they arrive. Their passage through the Dragon Gate and the streets is muted, only noted by those going about their everyday business. The mood throughout the city feels strange, slightly stilted, though it worries Tyrion far more than it does Brienne, for obvious reasons. His temper darkens and he pointedly mutters low curses about being kept in the dark by those he holds dear. It pains her, and Jaime even more, but they are still sworn to tell him nothing. So they let Lord Lannister simmer and swear all the way through the streets, even into the Red Keep itself.

Missandei is waiting for them.

They dismount and Brienne makes her way over to the Queen's Handmaiden.

"My Lady Evenstar."

"Missandei. I hope things are well."

"Things are as well as can be expected." They take in the sight of Pod already unbuckling the battered plate on Jaime, which has been borne all over Westeros, as the older knight impatiently tells him to get it away from him. He had stopped pretending it was very comfortable a little more than halfway through their journey.

Tyrion rubs at his back and walks slowly to them. "If I never see a saddle again, it will still be too soon," he grumbles, coming to a stop beside Brienne. "Missandei. It is good to see you."

"My Lord Tyrion. I am to accompany you to the Throne Room, where the Queen awaits you. There are matters you must discuss with her. You may take your leave from your brother first. I will remain here." Tyrion starts in alarm and looks up at Brienne, his skin gone pale, but she can only give a reassuring nod. He must face this change of circumstance alone.

The women watch him make his way over to Jaime. The brothers begin a soft exchange of words, too quiet to be heard. "You understand why your First Knight must not be present," Missandei says, formally but not unpleasantly, as Brienne moves to stand at her side.

"Of course." Jaime's presence would only increase talk of the plotting of lions.

"Your ship is ready to depart. The next high tide is in two hours."

This is a surprise to Brienne, but she lowers her voice, coloured as it is with concern. "The audience is _already_ in place? Things must be progressing for the Queen to act so quickly."

"She appears much as you last saw her, but she cannot maintain the ruse for much longer. It is too painful for her. It is now constant."

Brienne is unhappy at the thought of that, but another thing occurs to her. "Are the women of court still copying her?"

Missandei's eyes narrow marginally. Brienne can't know, she is sure, how enduring such sycophantic mimicry must have hurt both the Queen and her most devoted servant. "Yes."

"At least this afternoon will see an end to that," Brienne lightly reminds her.

A rare smile touches the lips of Missandei. "Yes."

"Please send Her Grace my warmest regards."

Dark curls are inclined respectfully. "She sends hers in return, and thanks you for alerting her to your arrival. She will be contacting you within days regarding an increase in need for dragon warriors."

"I have already moved troops in the North and Ser Kholo has been preparing blue cloaks since I was at Winterfell." Brienne pauses and they watch Jaime dropping carefully to his knees to embrace his younger brother. "Has he sent Tyrion's personal guard?"

"They have arrived."

"Matters are in hand, then," Brienne smiles.

"All is as it should be," is the calm reply.

Their business done, Brienne bows and moves toward Tyrion, Jaime and Pod. As she draws close, Jaime rises to his feet again, only to lean down and look at his younger brother with a fierce care. "Don't be afraid, Tyrion. Now go. It’s best not to keep the Mother of Dragons waiting."

Tyrion nods, parting from them without words and in an uncharacteristic state of nervousness. He and Missandei disappear into the keep, though the unwitting heir keeps glancing back, fear still written all over him.

The moment he disappears, Brienne starts to help Pod finish getting Jaime out of his borrowed armour. "He'll get over it," she says. " _Very_ soon." Jaime looks at her sharply and she continues. "We have to leave quickly. Our ship is waiting for us."

"She's doing it _now_? I thought she was only going to tell him of her illness," Jaime hisses. "Couldn't she wait for a bloody hour?"

"No. She's in pain."

"I see," he grunts, as the last of the metal is pulled from him. "Pod. Can you take this back to the armoury and meet us on board?"

Pod begins to gather the hastily discarded pieces of plate with a nod, while Jaime pulls his tattered cloak back on, over his mail and his sweat-stained and stinking arming doublet. With one last look at the place where his son's body once fell, the man, who is now to be banished for good, strides firmly out of the Red Keep, with Brienne at his side.

/-/-/-/-/

Brienne stands at the top of one of the gangplanks, watching Jaime as he stomps his feet. She knows what he is doing. His first boarding of a ship to Tarth had happened at night, in a world wracked by such instability. It had been hurried, disorganized even, and their only concern had been the safety of those with whom they travelled.

This time, he has the luxury of reflection, if only until Pod arrives. The First Knight of Tarth is savouring the feel of the mainland under his boots, whilst he can. She has drawn much attention, striding through the streets of King's Landing, but given his recent choice of cloak and the way he has hunched and hidden his stump beneath it, the folk of the city seem to have taken him as a prisoner or a sailor. Occasionally, even as he stands on the very brink of banishment, he is shoved and cursed at by passers by, and he grins up at her about it. She smiles back, wondering what those people would think if they knew they were abusing the Kingslayer, or the Winter Knight, or whatever other name has been chosen for him since the waxing of this moon.

Jaime leans over and scrabbles in the dirt and sheep shit around his feet, making Brienne grimace. He, on the other hand, quickly stands up, happily waving a pebble at her. A tiny piece of King's Landing to add to the three he had collected on their journey. One had been a small, brown stone, chosen reverently at the place where Shara had died, on their way back to the South. A blue-grey pebble had been casually picked from the yard of Winterfell. And even earlier, in a stolen hour, they had made their way to the clifftop of Casterly, where he'd played with his siblings when he was young. The little stone taken from there was an appropriate red.

It had been a strange thing, sitting next to him at the top the high precipice, whilst he talked of his youth. He had talked of his mother, his dying aunt, Tyrion and, of course, Cersei, and Brienne had found his memories of his old love didn't hurt her. It had taken her years, but she had finally come to know that his love for his sister had formed so much of him, for all that it eventually perished in the struggle for a power Jaime had never wanted.

It was their only time alone until the Northern Kingsroad, far longer they'd believed then, and Jaime had apologized for squandering it on talk of another. Brienne had called him an idiot, and they had ended up warmly bickering when she countered Jaime's suggestion that they strip and jump into the sea with the sound argument that his old bones probably weren't quite up to it anymore. They'd shared a single kiss before making their way back to Casterly.

A woman bearing a large basket pushes past Jaime on the dockside and he glances up at Brienne wryly. But then the humour in him drains away. If she were to allow herself to believe so fanciful a notion, she would think he was looking at her as if she were the morning sun.

Without further hesitation he walks up the gangplank and to her side. They settle, leaning on the ship's guardrail in silence, watching the comings and goings of the port, for the short time until Pod arrives and stomps his way aboard.

Myrcella and Anara are already below decks, but Gendry and Arya are taking their time, now that the Little Wolf has revealed she is with child. She will not be the youngest of mothers, so Brienne has ordered her to be careful. They can board the other Tarthian ship that waits at the next dock. Brienne shouts across to the captain of the small schooner to tell him to wait as the gangplanks are pulled in. Ropes are coiled on deck and then they are away. Their captain, who has lived on the waves more than on Tarth itself, moans and complains as he guides their ship through the treacherous tangle of wreckage which still remains from the battle of the Blackwater, though she suspects it is more because he enjoys indulging in an air of grumpiness than any real hatred of the task.

The bay itself is huge and if the weather is inclement, it may takes days for them to reach the Gullet, round Sharp Point, and head for open waters, but they are so close to home that she can almost taste Jaryn's dawnberries.

She stands with Jaime on the deck and they are looking back towards the Red Keep when the faint sound of the bells ringing in Baelor's Great Sept starts to echo across the waters.

"It is done," Jaime says quietly and she looks at him. "Tyrion is the heir to the Iron Throne." But then the ridiculous nature of the statement seems to strike him and he laughs. "I wonder what my father would've made of _that_?"

/-/-/-/-/

His hips protest, but he still takes the steps two at a time. The stairwell is relatively small and of no note. A sensible choice on the part of whoever built Evenfall, given that it leads to the most secure part of the high fortress.

Not the cells, at least not now, but the chambers of the leaders of Tarth. Brienne's father had chosen to move his family in to a narrow wedge of the west range, where the walls are at their thickest and access is limited.

Jaime passes the hallway branching off on the level where some of those closest to the current Evenstar are quartered. His daughters, Pod, and Charro live here in simple rooms, along with Arth, though the Maester chooses to sleep in his study more often than not.

As he almost reaches the top floor, he finds Lolla waiting for him. She begins to speak rapidly, drawing him to a halt but two steps from the landing. "Enni looks very tired. Has she been eating properly? Why did the Queen make you do this?"

"We're all tired, Lolla."

She doesn't seem to hear him, reaching out to touch his worn cloak warily with a fingertip. Her nose wrinkles in clear disgust at the sight of it, even as her questions don't stop, all irritation laced with deep concern. "What in blazes is this? Why are you wearing it? Are my blue cloaks not good enough for you? Why is Enni thinner? You look tired too. Are you both unwell? Should I be fetching Arth?"

Jaime pats the side of her face fondly. "No, Lolla. We're fine."

She simply pouts at him, her round face made yet rounder and wrinkles deepened by the passage of another year arching from the corners of her eyes. Those dark eyes narrow and she harrumphs. "Well, why did she look so unhappy?"

"Lolla," Jaime sighs. "Dearest Lolla. We haven't so much as _touched_ each other since Winterfell."

Lolla gapes at him and then shakes her head in disbelief. “Then why are you standing here, flapping your gums at me? Idiot.”

"You're standing in my way," Jaime says, rather pointedly.

"Oh," she mutters, bustling away to enter the door to her chambers, which faces his own. Then she spins back and points imperiously towards the end of the short corridor. "Well, then. _Go on_!” She disappears into her rooms, commenting unsubtly, and somewhat crudely, about highborns and their obsession with the contents of women's smallclothes.

Jaime smiles. "It's very good to see you, too, Lolla," he whispers into the sudden silence. Then he makes his way past his chamber, passes the Evenstar's armoury and opens the door to home.

It only opens so far before it bumps against the wall and he leans against it, simply soaking in the sight of her. She is facing away from him at the table, in her favourite loose nightshift, now worn so thin by the years that it conceals as little as silks would. But his nearly wife rarely wears silk, so this is more pleasing to his eyes anyway. Her hair is loose, now falling to the back of her shoulder blades. It shocks him, as for but a few precious nights in the North, it had always been tied back into a knot. Seeing how much it has grown since is a marker of the time they've again lost to someone else's cause.

Brienne turns and perches herself on the edge of the table, though her legs are so long she can stretch them out, her feet flat and her toes wiggling on the floor. Jaime finds his attention caught by the muscles in her thighs moving under her skin, as ever fascinated and half-hard already at the strength she somehow carries within her, coupled as it is with such gentleness.

She falls into stillness and looks at Jaime, blue eyes roving over him and settling on the roughspun cloak he'd insisted he wear since before they returned to King's Landing. Her mouth twitches into a half-smile, but then she raises her gaze to his.

She speaks quietly and warmly. “Close the door and come here.”

He bites his lip and does so, noting as he slides the bolt home that the sound sends the briefest of shudders through Brienne. Jaime knows, without asking, that it is an easing of pressure, and as he slowly makes his way to her, he watches the weight of a whole year, devoted to almost nothing but her duty, drop away.

She breathes deeply, and each exhalation sees her become happier and lighter. By the time he comes to her side, his thigh bumping against hers, and reaches up to tilt her face to his, the Evenstar is gone, if only for a little while.

Now she is herself.

“There you are, Brienne," Jaime says softly. "Where have you been hiding?”

“All over Westeros.” She moves her head slightly and kisses the palm of his hand, raised as it still is to her cheek.

“Damned inconvenient of you,” he chides. Brienne lifts her fingers and strokes his eyebrows, his cheeks, his lips.

“You weren’t so easy to find, yourself.” She combs her hand into the hair at the base of his skull, cradling it. It is this simple touch that lifts Jaime's own weight, one he'd forgotten he was carrying, from him. When they had left for King's Landing, he'd truly believed it was purely to face his death. The threat of it had lessened as their journey progressed, but only now does he feel safe again.

He wraps his stump around her waist and urges Brienne to rise to her feet, bringing her closer and letting his head fall forward onto her chest as sheer relief pours through him. He nuzzles at the opening of her nightshift, wanting to smell her, to taste her.

She is there. Solid. Real. Everything. He mouth brushes over and he is made himself again. He smiles and he pauses and he speaks on her skin. “Gods, it’s good to be home.”

Her answer is soft, yet certain, whispered into the air above him. "Yes, my love. It is."

/-/-/-/-/


	18. The Angry Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   
>  Banner by [Ro Nordmann](http://ro-little-shop-of-wonders.tumblr.com)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks, as ever, must go to RoseHeart, who is amazing.
> 
> Note - I am sorry that this chapter, whilst not the lengthiest in this, is still very long. I hope you will understand, as you look at it, why I didn't think it fair for it to be split. Warning - angst.
> 
> Disclaimer - I own it not.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - THE ANGRY MEN

 

/-/-/-/-/

“Oh, I don’t know, Brienne,” Jaime says, looking up at her from the blankets, “I think my favourite might be the one where you compared my mouth to the dung heaps in Flea Bottom.”

“Jaime! You didn’t _keep_ it?” Brienne drops her cloak back onto the chair.

He rifles through the untidy pile of paper scraps next to him on the bed and even if she is surprised, she can’t help but watch the movement of muscles under his skin. His hair is paler than it ever was, with even some of the darker strands on his chest gone white and he is a touch leaner than he used to be. Perhaps he is creakier too, but he is easily still strong enough, as he would like to say, and no less pleasing to her eyes for his age. She isn’t embarrassed when she is caught looking her fill. There would be no point, given how the night had kept them busy, even if his gaze is edged in amusement as he sees her seeing  him.

“I thought you would burn it,” she says, sorry that she had ever written it at all.

Jaime becomes serious, but not because she sent him an angry message some moons ago. He taps on the mattress next to him in invitation. “I would never burn a note from you, Brienne.”

 _Of course. Cersei._ He had told her, long ago, of the note she’d sent him. Of what he had done. Of how it had played on his mind for years, as they themselves fought and as, at length, his sister’s power and place had declined.

She sits on the edge of the bed and leans over to kiss him, her hair forming a light curtain around their faces. “Thank you, Jaime.” She smiles against him and she knows he can feel it. “Now give it here, so I can burn it for you!”

She lunges across his bare body, aiming for his outstretched hand, but in the space of an indrawn breath she is on her back, notes crinkling underneath her, precious but briefly forgotten as her very naked nearly husband grins down at her. “No. I think it’s good for me to be reminded that even the great Evenstar’s patience has a limit. Besides, I wasn’t very knightly that day.”

“You really weren’t!” she says. “Your brother’s troops were useless but you kept being friendly to them.” She pokes him lightly in the ribs. “And you didn’t have to make quite _so_ many vulgar jokes about the tow-headed giantess teaching them.”

“I was gaining their trust,” Jaime explains. “So I could hit them. Admit it, Brienne, you like it when I defend you. Sometimes.”

“I do,” she replies. “A little. But _I_ wanted to hit them.” He rolls onto his side, his laughter a low hum on the skin of her neck. Relief courses through her at the sensation. _We didn’t touch for so long._ “Gods, it’s good to be home, Jaime.”

“That it is, my love,” Jaime says, groaning a little as he pulls himself up to his feet, reaching down to help her up too. “So, what are you doing today? Another massed knighting?” He straightens the body of her shirt, knowing full well what matter she has to handle today.

“No. Never again. I’m just too old for it.” She grasps his shoulders, as if to draw his strength into her, and softly continues. “Kyron. I have to speak with Kyron.”

He nods and looks at her sadly. “Do you need a couple of us with you?”

“Perhaps nearby. He will be in the yard today, so I’ll wait until he’s finished, I think.”

“I’ll speak to Kholo,” Jaime says and draws her closer to him in comfort.

/-/-/-/-/

“It isn’t because I’m not grateful. And we can give up our quarters, if you...”

“No, Fredrick! I could never think of asking you and Lolla to leave. You are my family.” From his place at the window overlooking the yard, Jaime watches Brienne quietly absorb this unexpected news. Her castellan has been, it would seem, waiting for some time to change the nature of his place on Tarth. The Evenstar talks on, her inner gentleness warming her words. “Unless you want to move back down into the town, to be near your sons?”

“Oh no, m’lady,” Fredrick replies with certainty. “They run the Old Forge well enough and they are only your age. If they want to see me, they’ll find no difficulty in traipsing up a few stairs.” He chuckles lowly, his mouth now shockingly notable for its lack of teeth. “Given the size of Addam’s gut, it might do him a bit of good.”

Brienne carefully moves some of the mountain of scrolls covering the table at which Fredrick sits. Having cleared a corner, she leans on it and places her hand on his shoulder. “Has it really been that bad for you?”

At first, Fredrick can’t seem to answer, his frustration at his own increasing frailty apparent on his features. Jaime can’t bear to see this once strong man, this leader, struggle with his growing weakness, perhaps because it reminds him all too brightly of his own advancing age, so he looks down into the yard, at the children Brienne had watched a little earlier. Little wooden swords click-clack in the cool morning sunshine and Jaime feels old.

_We are all grown old now._

He turns back after a while, when Fredrick finds his tongue. “Every small illness seems to hit me hard now,” he says. “It’s my age, Enni. I’ve always been the oldest of us and I can’t go on forever.”

“You don’t have to give up entirely,” Brienne suggests, “if you don’t want to. Are you thinking of having Pollus take your place?”

“It makes sense,” Fredrick says plainly. “He’s been my scribe for years.” The old man pats the hand on his shoulder, as if to reassure the Evenstar. “There’s no rush, though. Let’s get you settled back in first.” But his composure again fails him and he frowns, unhappy with himself. “I’m sorry, Enni.”

Brienne leans forward, taking her loyal castellan’s face in her large hands. Even from his viewpoint behind her, Jaime can see the effect of her eyes on Fredrick. She does, after all, have the most astonishing eyes. He knows that better than anyone. “What for, Fredrick?” she asks. “Saving so many people, when there was nobody left to lead them? Serving this island before and since?” She presses a dry kiss to the old man’s forehead. “I won’t accept your apology, because it isn’t needed. We will talk again later.” At that she stands and leaves. Fredrick looks small in his seat, his own eyes glistening with the threat of tears.

Jaime smiles at Fredrick when he peers his way. “I think that was her way of calling you an idiot, Fredrick,” he offers, making the castellan smile a little.

“I sometimes wish Lolla was that gentle about it,” he mutters, glancing back at the doorway. “She is a good woman, Jaime.”

“Which one, Fredrick?”

“Ah, but you are a funny man.”

Jaime paces over to him and claps him gently on the shoulder. “All these years and you’ve only just seen it? Disappointing, Fredrick.” They grin at each other, two old men remembering a fireside conversation from years ago.

_It is what old men do, isn’t it?_

Jaime shakes himself and walks towards the door. “I have to find our Master of Horse. Should I send Pollus back in?”

“Yes,” Fredrick mutters, already picking up a scroll, his stump pinning the edge to the table to let him unroll it. “Thank you, Ser Jaime.”

/-/-/-/-/

Kyron seems to know why Brienne has come to see him the very moment she steps into the yard. He calmly tells his students to go to the Great Hall to eat. There is no panic in him, no edge of fear to his voice, but his shoulders slope in utter weariness and all of the bigness of him, of his personality, sloughs away as if caught in the heaviest of rains.

Once the young ones are gone, Brienne walks over to him, the shushing of her leather clad steps loud in her ears. She sees such sadness in him.

“Her brother was dead before we even left King’s Landing, Kyron. Lord Tyrion couldn’t find out for certain, but he thinks he was dead before he even introduced us.” Her soft words, spoken with no judgment, cleave into the big knight, who falls to his knees before her, a great wail of grief roiling up from his stomach. He doubles over, his fingers scratching at the cobbles, digging up balls of dirt from the gaps in between the stones.

When he looks up, tears are flowing, wetting his beard. “Please, my Lady, tell my wife I died naturally. Please don’t shame her. She didn’t know.”

“I will do no such thing,” she replies, noting him quail in his place before she continues, full of care. “Kyron, you aren’t to die today. I have no intention of killing you at all.”

“I’m sorry.” The words are unnaturally soft from Kyron’s lips, strangled with anger and fear and shame. He jerks to his feet, his look uncomprehending, and spins about, almost running for the gate. Brienne follows. She and Jaime had discussed this possibility earlier and it seems he was right.

The huge knight’s speed doesn’t slow as he reaches the open air, but can’t follow through on his intended action, as two large bodies check his progress and pin him against the side of the rock. “If you’re going, you’re taking us with you, Kyron,” Jaime spits. “And I have no wish to die today.”

“Agreed,” Kholo grunts, pushing against him with more force. “You’re still strong, Kyron,” he adds, as if he were talking about a bowl of stew being acceptable.

Brienne walks around them and sits on a lower step, looking up at the straining group. “No-one will accidentally fall from the steps today either. Please sit.” The bearded man sobs in his place, but eventually nods and the two knights loosen their hold on him. Kyron slumps to the steps, sitting curled in on himself and dejected.

Kholo takes a leather strap and ties it around Kyron’s wrist. He doesn’t resist, knowing full well the meaning of it. Those rare, unfortunate few who have found themselves in melancholy or madness in this high place have often been tied to Kyron in the past and now it is his turn. That being done, Kholo taps Jaime’s shoulder. The First Knight of Tarth, now sitting next to Kyron, keeping him pinned to the rising wall above by leaning hard against him, offers his left wrist even as he gazes up at the Dothraki knight unhappily. “Why are you tying _me_ to him?”

“Kyron wouldn’t drag a cripple to his death,” Kholo dryly says.

“Stop it, you two,” Brienne chides them, before looking at the man who has spied on them for so long. “Kyron...”

“I betrayed you, my Lady,” he bursts out. “You gave my family a home and I repaid you with lies.” The big man begins to openly weep, broken by the weight of his years of duplicity.

Brienne puts her hand on his knee, leaning forward to catch his gaze. “I wouldn’t quite say that, Kyron. Whatever information you’ve sent to her over the years has had no effect on this island.” That being said, she asks a question that has been bothering her for the past year. “Is that why you never took the rooms offered to your family up here?”

Kyron’s mouth seems to disappear behind his vast beard and he sniffs heavily. Kholo steps away, quietly telling someone to come back later at the gate, as Pod is no doubt doing far below. Kyron explains his choice. “I didn’t want to know too much, my Lady. And I’m not a very good spy. I once wrote the Queen a whole letter about Jaryn’s dawnberries.”

Brienne can see Jaime trying to remain serious and ignores him. “I don’t think the Queen will be expecting any more from you, Kyron. Either your information has been meaningless or she has run out of letters to send in return. I don’t believe she would’ve let slip that there was a spy in our ranks at all if your use to her hadn’t ended.”

“Or never really begun, if farming was a regular topic.” Jaime’s short attempt at gravitas ends with a wide grin. “How _that_ must’ve rankled with her.”

“Ser Jaime...,” Brienne warns, but can see he is convinced that the initial danger has passed. Looking at Kyron, she thinks that his over-reaction may well have been due to the shock of revelation and confrontation, to fears for his family, and hopes that Jaime is right.

“Kyron,” she says, “you have done much that is good here. For years, you have brought new people into our ranks, training them very well. Given how little harm has been done, I see no reason for things to change.” She smiles at him. “As for the spying, you were, as you say, not terribly good at it. And there are people serving Tarth who have done far worse.”

Jaime lifts their tied hands, bumping the side of his fist against Kyron’s. “I killed a king,” he adds, helpfully.

“If you don’t be quiet, Ser,” Brienne says, “ _you_ can fall accidentally from this high place.”

“You _wouldn’t,”_ he says, pretending to be scandalised.

“ _I_ would,” Kholo offers from his place behind the pair, chuckling.

“Do stop. Both of you,” Brienne sighs. “Yes, Ser Kyron. As we all know, Ser Jaime killed a king. But he is not the worst of us by far.”

“I’m _not_?” Jaime asks, clearly curious at the idea.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it is so. Ser Kyron, I think it is safe to free you. Do I have your word you will make no more attempts to end your life?” It is risk, to tie him so briefly, but looking at him, Brienne is certain that now that this encounter, which he must have dreaded for all of his time here, is done, he will be well.

“Of course, my Lady,” he says, as quietly as she has ever heard him. “But you are too kind to me.”

“I’m not,” she replies. “Besides, I’ve had a while to think the matter over. I wasn’t quite this calm at first.” She picks at the knot at Kyron’s wrist, finding Kholo’s handiwork difficult to undo with her blunt fingernails, but persevering until the leather strap falls away. “It doesn’t matter, Kyron. Tarth is still your home, if you wish it.”

Ser Kyron Chartney of Tarth looks at her in a grateful sort of wonder and it makes Brienne feel uncomfortable, so she reaches out for Jaime’s wrist, clamped as it already is to his mouth, wiggling as he tries to undo the tie at his own wrist with his teeth. She works at the leather bound to him, knowing well enough how little he needs a reminder of his having been kept so in times past.

Perhaps there is too much familiarity in the way she cradles his wrist, or the squeeze of Jaime’s fingers in thanks once the strap is released. But Kyron speaks, his voice still thick with emotion, but now edged with just a breath of happy curiosity. “So it is true? What the Queen ordered me to watch for?” Only as the words fall from his mouth, as if without thought, does he seem to remember why they are here and looks down to his feet, embarrassed at his forwardness. “I’m sorry. I should not presume...”

Jaime is unfazed, slapping a large shoulder as he rises to his feet, whispering into Kyron’s ear, “Well, if you’re not going to tell the Queen...”

“Jaime, Kholo, you may both go,” Brienne says pointedly. “And thank you.” She watches them leave and waits until they are but two sat on the steps, before saying any more. “What I have with Ser Jaime follows the restrictions set by the Queen and she knows it, Ser. But not, I think, from you.”

“No,” Kyron mutters. “As I’ve said, I always tried to keep myself apart, except for larger celebrations.”

“I thank you for that, Ser. Now it matters little, but in the past, it could’ve been dangerous for us.”

They sit and talk awhile, of the difficulties of conflicting oaths, of his family, and of how things might be better for Kyron, now that his role as the Queen’s informant on Tarth is done. When they end up in a companionable quiet, Brienne rises, satisfied that the matter is settled.

“Ser Kyron, I would like you to accompany me to the Great Hall, if you are able. I know it hasn't been your way in the past, but I am hungry, and would like to discuss those new to our island. I was looking at a Dornish girl earlier? Small, but very quick? Perhaps you could tell me of her?”

Kyron stands too, his eyes filling with more tears. “My lady truly is too kind. Too forgiving.”

“I’m not sure I am,” Brienne says, folding her arm around his and leading him back to the gateway. “I’m afraid, Ser Kyron, you are condemned to a life spent teaching the young and the inexperienced. The gods forbid we leave them to the sharp words and shorter tempers of Sers Jaime and Kholo alone.”

/-/-/-/-/

Brienne is halfway to the dockside when she meets Jaime. He pauses two steps in front of her. "It would seem we are to have a visitor, my Lady Evenstar." He is biting his cheek, trying not to laugh.

She shows no such restraint, sniggering slightly as she looks out at the approaching ship. "He moved fast, didn't he?" She takes in the rich red sails and abundant, if small, gold covered lions sprouting from upper parts of the hull. "It's hideous. And isn't it a bit...too _much_ , for your brother's tastes?"

Jaime gives up and smiles widely, turning as she moves to his side. "My father rarely took to sea. But when he did, he liked to make an impression."

"A hideous impression?"

"A hideously rich impression, I think you'll find," Jaime mildly offers.

"Of course," Brienne agrees. "Your brother must be very angry. It's barely been a fortnight since we left him."

"I know," Jaime grins. "This should be amusing."

The broken journey resumes, at first in companionable silence, but then Brienne notices the amount of damp grass stuck to her First Knight's boots and breeches. "How was Bran?"

"Well enough, I think," Jaime answers. "Though far less prone to his kind of sombre chatter. It might be I just can't hear him this far away, I suppose."

"You didn't touch the tree?"

"No!" Jaime exclaims. "It's bad enough people know I talk to it. Can you imagine what they would say if I started hugging the damned thing?"

"I said nothing about hugging, Ser," Brienne smiles.

"I know. But that's what the smallfolk would end up telling each other," he chuckles, "and you know it."

Brienne doesn't bother to ask anything more. He had been deeply unsettled when he returned from the Godswood at Winterfell and though she'd tried to get him to tell her what had happened, he refused to say. She assumed that there had been some talk of the past, but whatever had caused the black mood that consumed him didn't last long in any case.

_Let him have this for his own._

She is distracted by a dreadful noise floating across the water. "Are those horns?" She gapes at the man at her side. "Are they blowing on horns?"

"Tyrion hates them. I would've thought he'd have sent them on their way years ago!" Jaime says. He becomes conspiratorial. "Don't tell anybody, but my brother doesn't like making folk destitute, unless it serves him politically."

"I'm sure," Brienne replies as they reach the cobbles of the harbour-front. They watch the ropes being thrown from ship to shore and she notices that there are even more lions carved into the vessel than she'd expected. "I think some of the family gold is missing."

"It was only ever hammered gold," Jaime says. "I think he's hoping it will all wear off soon enough."

Brienne tilts her head to look at a particularly weather worn lion, now left with a mis-shapen, gaudy mask, as the ship is hauled in, bumping against the dock with a gentle thump. "So say we all." Within moments, the gangplanks are being pushed out to shore and a very short man appears at the top of one, radiating anger. "He really doesn't look very happy with you, Ser."

Jaime gazes blandly at the heir to the Iron Throne while he makes his way down creaking oak. "I'm sure he'll have a few choice words for you too, my Lady Evenstar."

Brienne huffs, only to end up trying to remain serious as Tyrion walks straight up to Pod, who had helped with the ropes, and roundly slaps his forearm. "You knew!" he shouts. "You knew all along, you pile of goatshit!"

"He doesn't look best pleased," a voice pipes up next to Jaime. They both glance down at Lolla, who is standing there looking far too happy at Tyrion's ill-temper. The two like each other well enough, not that anyone would be able to tell from the way they exchange insults.

"Have you come to gloat, Lolla?" Jaime asks as Pod grins and bows to Tyrion, who then slaps him again.

"No," she sniffs. "I just wanted to feel tall for a change."

"I wouldn't say that to him today, if I were you," Jaime advises. "The mood he's in, he's likely to order your head taken."

Lolla snorts at that. "He can try."

Tyrion really does look furious as he stomps his way over to them. He stops a few feet away so he doesn’t have to crane his neck too much, an approach he’s been taking with her for a long time, yet he can’t seem to settle his gaze onto either herself or Jaime. His cheeks puff as he tries to decide on a lone target for his anger, but then he sees Lolla and appears to give up. “I shall be having words with you two later,” he says, glaring at the little woman instead. “Why have your brought your hag with you?”

Lolla smiles as sweetly as a small girl watching a butterfly. “Oh, I came all by myself. I was hoping you might joust on a pig for us.”

Brienne covers her face with her hands and so only gets to hear Tyrion charge forward, but is peeking through her fingers to see a sharp kick delivered to Jaime’s shin. She winces in sympathy as Jaime softly groans, “That’s going to bruise.”

“Good!” Tyrion shouts and Brienne drops her arms as he marches to Lolla, the set of his jaw decidedly stubborn. “I'm hungry, old woman. Get me some ham.”

Lolla simply stares at him. “You're short, not crippled. Get it yourself.”

Brienne watches them as an unspoken battle commences. She has to lean back a bit to see their eyes narrow and widen at each other, expecting more than a little real scorn to begin pouring out of them.

Instead, after a while, Lolla shrugs and takes Tyrion’s arm, beginning to walk him away. However, any hopes of them being civil are shortly put to rest by Lolla. She looks at her companion and speaks, again with an insincere rush of lightness as she tugs him along. “Well, should I be telling the whores of Tarth to get ready for a very busy few days? I hear you’ve worn out a fair few in your time.”

“Not from us!” Jaime shouts, though it goes unacknowledged.

Brienne glances at him and he shrugs, pointing down to his recently kicked leg. She bumps his shoulder and they turn towards the odd pair. As they do, Tyrion says, “No. I’m married, Lolla. _Happily_ married.”

Though she cannot see it, Brienne is sure she can hear dear Lolla humouring Tyrion in the light pats that hit his arm as she continues. “Is that the imaginary kind of happily married? Because I’m certain I’ve never met this poor creature. Tied to you, of all people. It isn’t your height or anything, you must understand. It’s just your lack of personal charm.” Lolla stops them walking and turns to gaze at Tyrion in an absolute mockery of care. “And your cockrot must be _terrible_ for her.”

“Oh gods,” Brienne whispers, watching Tyrion, perhaps fifteen feet away, swing about so he can look at Lolla too.

But the heir to the Iron Throne grins and throws an arm out, as if he were a mummer. “Excuse me whilst I send a raven! ‘Dearest Sansa, please abandon your arduous duties as the Guardian of the North, the Lady of Winterfell and mother of our wonderful children to come to the far-off and insignificant isle of Tarth. It’s very important that you meet Lolla, who has the bloodline of a lowborn slug, the wit of a bowl of brown and is a bit worn out herself. Your loving husband, Tyrion.’”

Lolla shakes with laughter and hits his shoulder hard. “Oh, that was quite _good_.”

Tyrion smacks her wrist in return and points back towards Brienne and Jaime. “You _are_ distracting me from _them_ , aren’t you? I’ve been assuming that’s what this is.”

Lolla agrees. “Well, I _was_.” She points along the harbourside unapologetically. “The smokehouses and salthouses are that way and I have things to do. No doubt I will see you later,” she says and leaves, heading for her weaving loft without looking back.

“Not if I can find something small to crawl into and hide!” Tyrion calls after her, before  turning back to them. “Come on then, you two. I _had_ guessed and I’m truly not happy with either of you, but I _am_ hungry.”

/-/-/-/-/

Tyrion's ire had proven short-lived. In truth, Brienne thinks he probably wanted to escape King's Landing, more than to travel for days aboard ship just to berate herself and Jaime. It may not have been a wise move to make, from a political viewpoint. Yet Brienne understands that his sudden elevation would've left him feeling angry and isolated in the capital, no matter that he may well have guessed it was coming. Though both brothers carry decades of pretense that they could not care less what other people say, Brienne knows it is often those who protest the hardest who are wounded the most.

Their short, impromptu tour of the smokehouses had seen Tyrion's sharp words gradually soften, even if she believes they will be subject to some scorn for however long he chooses to remain on Tarth. A brief stop in the Sea Inn may well be helping, though Jaime feels forced to tell the barkeeper to stop treating Tyrion as if he were already a king. "He's bad enough without a crown," the older brother mutters, though the younger sees nothing wrong in such treatment at all.

They'd found Pod and Charro there with Kholo, and the enormous Batherjee joins them shortly before they leave, causing the heir to the throne to glare across the table at Brienne. "Are you gathering all your biggest knights to taunt me? That one's as big as the Mountain was!"

"No," she says, taking in the sight of her largest knight having to turn slightly to get his shoulders in through the door.

"Where is he from?"

"Somehow, I've never found the time to ask."

At that, Tyrion lets out a sharp bark of laughter. "That's probably wise."

"I grew up on the shores of the Hidden Sea," Batherjee states solemnly as he comes closer, screwing up his face in concentration while he looks about for a free and sturdy stool on which to sit. "Near to what you would call the Mountains of the Morn."

That surprises Brienne. She'd always thought him from the Bone Mountains. Tyrion leans in, all interest, his thirst for knowledge as unquenchable as ever. "What would you call them?"

"Something you Westerosi can't pronounce," Batherjee replies bluntly, sitting down gingerly whilst Charro and Kholo chuckle into their tankards.

The big knight wiggles a little on the stool, which underneath him looks like it should belong to a child, to see if it'll hold as Jaime says, "That must make you our farthest-born knight, Batherjee."

"No," he says. A huge finger points across the table. "Charro is."

Jaime turns to the much smaller knight. "Where are you actually _from_?"

Ser Charro shrugs, making his ear jewellery clink. "Further east. And south a bit. I'm not from Essos." Seeing the First Knight of Tarth's confused look, he finally tells the others where he came from, though Brienne has long since known. "I'm from Ulthos."

"Ulthos? Nobody lives in Ulthos," Tyrion scoffs at the older man. "Isn't it just a wild jungle?"

At this, Kholo laughs outrageously, clapping his hand onto Lord Tyrion Lannister in a friendly fashion, despite it being quite hard. As his future ruler glares up at him, rubbing his shoulder where it is clearly hurting, Kholo simply says gleefully, "These Westerosi think they know all of the world!"

For a moment, Brienne believes him in his cups, but then she notices he's as sharp-eyed as ever. The first of her eastern blue cloaks is simply indulging in his favourite sport. He'd thought the baiting of animals pointless since he first saw it, but Westerosi-baiting, on the other hand, is apparently quite entertaining.  She sees a grin being exchanged between Kholo and Pod. It's at this point that Brienne realizes Pod's responsibilities as Tyrion's chief tormentor have been passed to another. And she decides to let it go on. It won't hurt Tyrion too much to be kept in check, on occasion.

Once they've finished at the inn, their little group slowly makes its way along the harbour front, light jests lancing back and forth between them all whilst they weave through the smallfolk now thronging to gape at Tyrion's ridiculous ship.

As they make it to the bottom of the stairs up to Evenfall Hall, Tyrion starts to lag behind a little and Brienne takes the few paces back to him. "Are you going to make me drag you up there like a child, my Lord?" she asks mildly.

"I wouldn't dream of it, my Lady," he smiles, "but you must understand that for someone of my stature it seems to be a very long - "

There is a flash of movement, of metal in sunlight and Brienne doesn't even have time to think. She grabs Tyrion by the hair and shoves him behind her, throwing her left arm out  to intercept the blow of a dagger. A burning sensation shoots down her fingers and up her arm when the small blade pierces through her palm and out again, the shiny point looking odd near her knuckles. Then it is gone, a half dozen blue cloaks pinning the man bearing it to the ground.

She can barely draw breath before Jaime is in front of her, lifting her hand and turning it over gently. The blood from her palm covers his, though the wound itself is small. Her little finger is beginning to twitch and he gazes up at her, a mixture of fury and concern, asking, "Brienne, can you get to Arth? We'll see to this one. I'll be with you shortly."

She nods, a little dizzy, but not really noting it. "I want him alive. I need to question him. But make sure to keep Tyrion safe and away from him."

 She begins to take the steps two at a time, but she can be no more than twenty stairs from the bottom when she hears a shout from below, even as she starts to understand that something is very wrong.

Her heart feels as if it is beating out of her chest and the fire in her flesh isn't easing. It's getting _worse_. Her head starts to twitch too, and when she realizes, finally, what is happening, she can do nothing but call for him.

_"Jaime!"_

She turns back and can see hurried movement at the bottom of the stairs, though they all seem to be moving so slowly. Brienne is too cold, or perhaps too warm. She gets one glimpse of Jaime, his face drained of colour as he tries to get to her, but she knows he is already too late.

Then there is the sky and Brienne is falling as the world narrows and narrows.

The last thing she sees is her own vomit, smeared over the front of Jaime's blue shirt where he is suddenly holding her. It dampens her face and hair. She thinks it must be hers, though she doesn't know how it got there.

Brienne cannot say his name again as the darkness comes rushing in, and it seems the world has blurred and that time is gone away. That in her fevered state, she has been dreaming of a whole life she could have had whilst she is strapped to the back of a horse like a sack of oats in the Riverlands. Dying.

/-/-/-/-/

The bright glint of metal arcing through the air catches his eye, and Charro knows as he sees it that he can't reach the blade in time. He sharply elbows Pod back a step and throws himself at the assailant, grasping at the hand holding the weapon and letting his shoulder slam into him, driving him hard to the ground. Even as the breath in the thin, dark-skinned man's lungs puffs out of him, washing warmly over his neck, Charro is glancing back towards Ser Brienne.

Blue cloaks appear, as if from nowhere, securing the Heir and binding the limbs of the man beneath him to the muddy cobbles whilst he takes in the sight of the Evenstar holding up her own injured hand for a moment, simply looking at it. As her husband, in name if not in fact, begins to examine the wound piercing her off-hand, Charro sees the blow again in his mind, and turns to look down at the man beneath him. His clothes tell him nothing. They are well worn and a mix of Westerosi and Essosian styles. The blade is small and plain.

_But something is wrong._

Charro flicks his gaze over the man's features, but again there is nothing to make him remarkable. A child begins to scream, closer to the dock. He swings his head about slowly above the attacker, trying to take everything in amongst the increasing din. Then he sees it. Three fingers breadth beneath the man's left ear, there is a faint mark, an old scar that can only have been made by the clasp of an ill-fitted slave collar.

It is only when he looks into brown eyes gone cold in triumph and he sees the strike of the dagger again that he is sure he, that _all_ of them, are wrong. These are not the eyes of a man who has been captured in failure. They are the eyes of someone who has already done what they set out to do.

_The blow was meant for her. And the blade isn't his weapon._

_"Poison!"_ The word is ripped from his gut, harsh, guttural, full of an accent nobody here has ever heard, for he has always concealed it. But they understand it well enough and shouts of alarm rend the air about Charro. He looks behind him again, to see Ser Jaime scrambling to make his way up the steps to the Evenstar, who is slowing above them, her legs unsteady and her head twitching. But he is too late.

_We are all too late._

She turns. And she falls.

Everybody else cries out, but Charro grips the throat of the silent man on the ground and glares down at him.

 _"Sygaerzy!"_ he shouts. _"Cha kanaar?"_ His words, chosen long ago by those owned in Slaver's Bay, earn him nothing, just a curl of the prisoner‘s lips. They stare at each other, close, yet too distant.

_This one will never speak._

It doesn't matter. Charro doesn't _need_ him to speak. He leans further down until their noses touch. "Shannat?" he hisses. The tip of the nose resting on the side of his own remains still. There is no reaction in the prisoner at all.

_It is not so._

"Mattaka?" The same.

"Foraetto?" There is a twitch of an eyelid. That is all, but it is enough. The assailant knows as soon as Charro that he has spoken without words and his features become more closed. Three or four more hissed words garner nothing and Charro is fully aware that he will need much more time to get any further information of use. _Time Brienne may not have._

He pushes himself up from the man, telling those keeping him still that he is not to be killed and quickly moves to Ser Jaime, dropping to his side near the bottom of the steps.

The Evenstar's feet lie above them and her head is lower, curled into her knight's shirt as she retches, bringing up bile. Jaime has clearly made an attempt to prevent her fall injuring her, though there is some blood in her hair. He seems unable to speak, his arms wrapped around Brienne's shoulders and waist. She is sweating, even when she slumps, having emptied her stomach over him. For the barest moment, she appears to come back to herself. Charro isn't sure if she can see and she works her mouth as if trying to speak.

Then she worsens, her eyes rolling back into her head and her whole body shaking wildly. Charro crawls up a few steps, trying to keep her legs from kicking so hard. She could break herself, she is hitting the stairs with such violence. But suddenly, Batherjee and Kholo are there, lifting the Evenstar from unyielding stone. Pod helps them bear her up between them, though she shudders still. The two larger knights lock their arms together, forming a cradle of sorts, pinning her between them. Without pause, they set off upwards, shouting at a young one descending to turn and run and warn the Maester of their coming.

"Tell Arth I think it's venom, but not which one!” Charro calls after them. “And let her hand drop."

"It will bleed more!" Kholo looks back as him, confused.

" _Yes,”_ Charro says. “Go. _Quickly_."

Pod runs back down to lift Ser Jaime from his place on the steps, with Charro’s assistance. Charro tries not to see the blood on stone and hand. “Go with her, Ser Jaime.” These words seem to bring him back to himself and the old knight almost stumbles as he lurches into movement, but then he finds his feet and they fly after the woman he loves.

Pod is glaring at those knights milling at the bottom of the stairs, all but useless. “Go. Help them!”

Numerous boots run past in a swirl of blue and Charro goes to follow them, but is held back by Ser Podrick, who pushes him in the direction of the Heir, now sat on the bottom step, alone. “I will take the prisoner, Charro.”

Charro pulls Lord Tyrion Lannister up to his feet and draws a blade, for it is best to be cautious.

Pod looks back at him as he starts to wrestle the prisoner over onto his front, to tie his hands. "Let the Brothers take Tyrion up. You will both fit. Keep him safe."

A few viciously tight windings of rope later, and the assassin is lifted to be borne upwards himself.

“Put him in the Hole. I will question him again soon.”

Pod nods bleakly at Charro’s word as another ascent begins. “Get him to Arth’s chambers.”

Then they too are gone and Charro grasps the arm of Ser Jaime’s brother, who pulls back, resisting a touch. Charro sees he is afraid, but he must be secured. "You will come with me," he says, half-dragging the dwarf into Herdmarket and ordering the gates sealed.

/-/-/-/-/

It is obvious when they arrive that Arth already knows Brienne is hurt. There is a flurry of movement throughout the large chamber where he practises his craft, with much of the near end being cleared of people by his students.

“In here,” the thin man bluntly orders, his gaze roving over the body of the ailing Evenstar even as Batherjee and Kholo manoeuvre her into his small study and carefully lower her onto the pallet hastily laid out there. Jaime follows the Maester in.

Almost as soon as her head touches the thin wadding covering the low planks of wood, Brienne’s back arches from it and her features flicker and start to contort wildly as convulsions overtake her again. Kholo and Batherjee grasp her firmly, trying to keep her still.

“Gently,” Arth says, his tone calm. He wraps his fingers around Brienne’s twitching head, feeling about the wound in her scalp. “We just need to stop her injuring herself further.”

At great length, her convulsions ease and the Maester holds his left ear just over her mouth, listening. “I was told poison?”

“A defensive wound to her hand. Charro thinks it venom, but he doesn’t know what kind.” So says Pod, who is slightly out of breath as he comes in and kneels at the foot of the pallet. He gently touches the skin of Brienne’s ankle, as if to reassure himself that she is still alive. “She fell on the steps.” He frowns at the Evenstar’s piss-stained breeches and looks at Kholo bleakly. “The prisoner is secure.”

“Good,” says the Master of Horse, somehow filling that one word with a mountain of deathly intent.

“She fell on the stairs?” Arth asks, his tone suddenly urgent. “How far?”

“About twenty of them,” Batherjee says, his deep voice filling the room.

Arth nods. “Quiet,” he says, listening again at Brienne’s now slack lips. Jaime doesn’t know why he has to be so close. They can all hear her breath bubbling in her chest, as if she is drowning.

The Maester’s brow furrows. He seems to pause in deep thought, but then he rocks back on his knees and reaches out for the front of Brienne’s shirt, his long thin fingers surprisingly strong as he tears at it in a sharp, sudden movement. Jaime makes no more than a sound of protest, for he can barely form any words at all. “I have to check her ribs, Jaime,” Arth explains, while he pulls the hem apart.

Jaime dips his head, uneasy in his assent and then he takes in the sight of another man’s hands running over Brienne, squeezing gently to check for breaks. It should, he thinks, make him angry or jealous, but he feels nothing. He is numb.

_I can’t lose her._

But this isn’t the North, where short strands of silk could seal her wounds, or shouting and fury could gain the attention of the overburdened Maesters. Jaime can do nothing and he feels as nothing. He is not the only one, he understands as he sees Batherjee next to him, his head bowed and his sight fixed on his own fingers at her hip. Kholo, across from him, can’t even seem to bear to look at the Evenstar at all in this poor state, his eyes locked on the wooden panels securing Arth’s potions above them. His face is writ in little but pure fury, his jaw working furiously under dark skin.

There is more tearing as Arth doesn’t even try to remove the rest of the shirt, simply ripping the sleeve away so he can get to her back. “On her side,” he orders, and the hands of good men roll Brienne gently onto her right. Almost immediately, Brienne’s breathing worsens and Jaime hears himself whimper like a kicked cur at the unconscious struggle in it. Arth quickly presses an ear to her side, even as his hands move over her freshly exposed skin.

When he is done, he lays the Evenstar on her back again, but the tortured sound of air sucking in and out of her remains much louder. Tarth’s healer rubs the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes to think.

They wait; all of them, bar Kholo, looking at the Maester for hope. But he says nothing, lost in the task of finding it. Jaime strokes her damp hair away from her sweat-slicked forehead. She doesn’t respond and the only sound in the room is the desperate vibrating in her as she craves air.

But then Pod speaks. “I’ve heard a death rattle, Maester.” Jaime glares at him, wanting to strike him, wanting him to utter no such thing, but their boy is frightened and he is speaking the truth.

Arth’s eyes snap open and he seems to leap to his feet, stepping carefully over the pallet and its burden and between Jaime and Batherjee. “Let us hope this is not her's,” he says, opening a wooden door and retrieving a tiny bottle, full of a dark, thick fluid. Arth shakes it as he moves back to his place and then he uncorks it. With a deliberate care, he drips the tiniest amount of the potion onto a fingertip and warily daubs it onto Brienne’s tongue.

“Hold her,” he warns. Just in time. Again, Brienne’s body is wracked with spasms and her limbs fly out. Jaime hears Pod cry out in pain, but it matters little to him as he watches his beloved nearly wife’s face contort, making the large scar on her cheek something monstrous and misshapen in his eyes. It is rendered horrible by the unnatural stretching and twisting of her chin.

“What have you _done?”_ he hisses at Arth, who has wedged his arm between the top of Brienne’s head and the wall.

“I had to risk it. This should pass,” he replies through clenched teeth.

 _“Should?”_ Jaime shouts. Yet even as he does, Brienne slumps back onto the pallet, as if into sleep, her breathing less distressed. There is a moment of silence as everyone waits to see what will happen next. But nothing does.

Arth’s cheeks puff out with a large sigh of relief. “She is no better. Not really. But this should hold her for a short while. Where’s Charro? I need to know more.”

“On his way,” Pod mutters, grimacing down at his off-hand. “He’s bringing Tyrion.”

“She kicked you?” Arth mutters distractedly, leaning along the length of the sickbed, taking in the offset end of Pod’s little finger. “You can put that back into place easily enough, Kholo,” he says, dismissing the matter.

This momentary concern for Pod allayed, Jaime returns his attention to Brienne and ignores the younger man’s grunt as the end of his finger is roughly put back into position. He is useless here and can only touch her face and neck and shoulders, more to feel the warmth in her, her life itself, than anything else.

A small hand points its way into his vision, down towards Brienne. “Are you finished there?” Lolla is by Jaime’s side, holding a blue cloak. At Arth’s nod she crouches and tucks the soft textile around her Enni’s torso. “I will clean and change her shortly.” It is only as the old woman’s face, etched with her own fear, turns to him that Jaime notices the stink of shit hanging heavily in the air. Brienne has soiled herself too.

“I can do it, Lolla,” Jaime says.

“We can both do it, Jaime, but now you’ll come with me.” He starts to object, but Lolla won’t listen and she pulls at his shoulder. “We’ll be just outside. Arth has to work and you need fresh clothes.”

Jaime’s hand falls to his shirt and he now feels the blood and bile coating him. Still he doesn’t want to move, but Lolla cups his cheeks. Her palms are too small and the sharp calluses from years of loomwork feel oddly shaped against his wet skin.

His wet skin.

_My skin is wet._

“Jaime, you are weeping,” Lolla gently tells him. “We won’t be long. Come now. Pod will stay with Enni.”

Reluctantly, he allows himself to be led from the room. He looks back and sees Pod make his own way past the enormous Batherjee, kneeling beside Brienne’s head and wiping at the drool flowing from her mouth with the end of his sleeve. Small fingers tug at his stump, though soon enough Lolla pushes him to be seated on a tiny, three-legged stool just past the doorway. The little woman steps in between his knees and mops at his tears with a cloth remnant. “We must be strong for her, Jaime. Arth will save her.”

“What if he _can’t_ , Lolla?” She is unable to answer him, leaving only silence. The cloth falls from his face to be wrung uselessly in her hands and her dark eyes fill. Neither of them can bear it. People move around them, but are unseen. Both Jaime and Lolla are caught in a trap of the darkest, unvoiced fears.

In the end, Lolla lifts the cloth again, sniffing as she pats at his face. “There’s some in your beard,” she says quietly. She cleans him for what feels like an age, but when she is satisfied with her work, she takes a half-step back. “Lift your arms.”

Jaime does so without question and finds himself shirtless in seconds. “Lolla...”

“There are fresh clothes there for you Jaime,” she says, indicating the small pile by the side of the stool. “I’ll leave your breeches to you.”

Unthinking of the others gathering in worried groups about the room, Jaime stands and strips himself out of his breeches too, only noticing his brother standing against the wall opposite him as he fiddles helplessly with the laces of his new ones. “I’ll do these,” Lolla says without any fuss, tying the laces into a neat bow. He looks again at Tyrion, who is pale in the grey light washing in as far as this end of the chamber.

“’She will fall,’” he mutters and Tyrion walks over to him.

“What is it, Jaime?” he asks.

“It’s what Bran said at Winterfell,” he whispers. “’She will fall.’ I had thought he was talking about the Queen’s illness.”

“It doesn’t matter, brother,” Tyrion replies. “If this is what Bran meant, then you have caught her.”

“Badly,” he says, as the guilt crashes in, threatening to drive him to his knees. “Too badly.”

“What do you think?” he hears Charro ask. Jaime hadn’t seen him go into the Maester’s study at all. Jaime turns and looks into the tiny room.

“It could be that she should be dead. Her strength and size may have saved her, but it may yet kill her too.” He glares at Charro. “I need to know _more_.”

“Then I will make him talk,” their farthest born knight bleakly says, leaving the study and nodding at Tyrion as unsheathes two of his smaller knives.

Perhaps Brienne would not approve, but nobody moves to stop Charro. Jaime turns, expecting to see a sense of disappointment in his little brother, but Tyrion looks merely wary of the small knight and his blades.

/-/-/-/-/

For three nights, Tyrion's dreams have been plagued by the sound of creaking ropes and memories of perhaps one of the more uneasy journeys of his life, albeit that it was very short.

The Brothers, it turned out, were blind. They worked the crane atop Evenfall Hall, their feet beating out a constant rhythm on the huge wooden treadwheel there, unseeing and therefore unafraid of the height. Under normal circumstances, they would not have lifted live goods, but on the day Brienne was so gravely injured, Ser Charro had dragged Tyrion into Herdmarket and ordered it immediately sealed. Then the small man somehow threw him into a huge, thick leather sack, which usually bore up barrels of ale or salted fish to the fortress above. Once he was certain Tyrion was safely inside, the slight Ulthosi warrior had jumped in on top of him, his knives still drawn whilst a bell rang out to call for their ascent to begin.

Tyrion's personal guard of blue cloaks had already been bluntly ordered to meet them at the top by Ser Charro, who was still muttering a few curses under his breath about their use at all as he'd sheathed his blades. The man's knees had poked into his stomach almost painfully while they rose up, his dark, thin arms flashing out occasionally when the sack bearing them threatened to bump against the sheer rock face. For almost half of their journey, Tyrion said nothing, his mind blank. Seeing Brienne felled by something meant for him had filled him with a horror he hadn't felt in a long time. Not since winter had last gripped the world had he felt in such immediate danger. He was afraid.

“I am sorry, Lord Tyrion,” the knight eventually said, “but we must be cautious.”

“This doesn't feel very cautious,” he’d snapped. As the ropes creaked.

“It is safe,” Charro said. “I’ve made this trip a number of times before.”

“I shouldn't have come to Tarth,” Tyrion then muttered, to himself more than anything.

“If it helps at all, he didn't come with you,” Charro offered with some small sympathy. “And I don't think you were to be the victim. It was meant for her.”

The ropes creaked and creaked as Tyrion had let that unpleasant surprise settle in his mind. He had no idea who would want to kill Brienne, or why, and he simply hadn’t considered it. He tried to think, but the ropes kept creaking. In the end, he’d let his curiosity about his travelling companion drive him to ask, “What brought you to Tarth, Ser Charro?”

“A ship,” he bluntly replied as the palm of his hand glanced off dark rock. At Tyrion’s weary look, the slight man had leaned back in their sack and pursed his lips in his own thoughts.

Eventually, he spoke. “In Ulthos, I was powerful, but no king. I offered people to the sun, to keep the rest of us safe.” Tyrion must have been fairly obviously confused at that, for Charro had gone on to explain, much to his horror. “I killed them, Tyrion. I cut out their hearts and held them to the sky.”

For a full minute, Tyrion had been unable to speak. When he did, all he could do was ask, “How many?”

“Many. Too many. But it was never enough. One day the earth shook and most of our people died. A greater sacrifice was called for. My wife and child were amongst those chosen. My wife was silent and brave, but my son...I had heard cries like his many times before. I had caused them too, but that was the day I finally saw that the sun doesn't care who bleeds for it.” He then looked at the bright sun, just for the barest moment, as if he loathed it.

Tyrion had tried to kick himself away from him, but it was useless, only making the sack spin slowly in the air. “Brienne _knows_ this? Why has she not killed you?”

“She nearly did!” Charro had laughed. He lifted his shirt, revealing a scar running up the middle of his chest. “Oathkeeper is very sharp. But she saw I could be of use. Lord Tyrion, it has been many, many years since I believed the sun a god. I have travelled far and learned much. I can’t wash the blood from my hands, nor would she let me, but she allows me to live. Whilst I can help her.”

A sick feeling rose inside him when Tyrion had realized this could be his end. “If she is the only one who knows, how can I be sure you did not arrange this? That you won’t kill me now?”

“We’re quite high up,” Charro had said lightly. “If I wanted you dead, you would already be dead.”

“That isn’t very reassuring,” Tyrion spat, maddened by the creaking of the ropes and by his inability to get away from this monster.

“My Lord,” Charro then said, “I spent decades with no purpose, moving through the world unnoticed. Tarth was my last chance to do some good. I would not change what is here. I am telling you because...because, if the Evenstar dies, somebody I serve must know. I will be serving you, soon enough.” He’d unstrapped one of the many daggers and Tyrion had prepared himself for death, only to find the sheathed blade pressed firmly into his hands. “This is yours. If this day ends with you being the only living soul who knows it, you are free to make the choice Brienne did not. I will not stop you.”

The last few feet of their journey had been made in absolute silence, barring the damned creaking ropes. Charro chose not to speak. Tyrion was simply unable to.

It was only as the sack they’d come up in was swung onto the top of Evenfall Hall that Ser Charro wryly said, “Well, that got us through this, did it not?”

“I wouldn’t say _easily,”_ Tyrion replied shakily, as he found his feet on comforting, solid stone.

Tyrion had gripped the sheath of the little dagger gifted to him very tightly indeed as he followed Ser Charro to Maester Arth’s chambers.

The sight that greeted him there, that of his brother wearily stripping himself out of his breeches, uncaring of anybody who saw him in nothing but his skin, had turned his heart to stone in his chest. For a moment, he had thought Brienne already dead, but then the sounds of struggling and low male muttering from a side chamber proved him wrong. Jaime had shared Bran’s words with him before their wait began.

Those first hours had been dreadful. Brienne’s body curled and kicked and writhed as it fought the poison in her. It had been messy too, bile and shit everywhere, and all the time the lady herself blessedly unaware of it, which Tyrion believes was probably for the best.

But the seizures which tortured her eased, and what came after was somehow more awful. Though she was still fevered and given to occasional bouts of head twitching, she became more and more unmoving, until the only sign of life in her was a quiet, unnervingly shallow breathing. After a day or so, _everything_ else stopped, and the good Maester had seemed more concerned by that than he had been before.

Through it all, Jaime stayed. He ran out of clean clothes on that second day and has been wearing the same pair of breeches ever since, along with nothing else. He didn’t rest until the third day, when he simply fell asleep on the floor next to Brienne. Arth had complained bitterly about not needing another large knight lying unconscious in his tiny study. Lolla promptly told him to be quiet and covered Jaime with a blanket where he lay. Even then, his rest was brief. He has barely taken any food either and it has been but an hour since Tyrion managed to force him to eat some bread and cheese and make him take the nearest pallet just outside.

He walks to the doorway and looks at his brother. He appears half dead, his eyes blackened with weariness and his limbs flung out where he fell, twisted like a body on a battlefield. It is a shocking contrast to the Evenstar herself, who now lies still and neat in her nightshift, the blankets carefully tucked around her smooth and unruffled.

He and Jaime have talked far more than they have in a very long time, quiet words exchanged in a time of such doubt. Tyrion walks back to his stool and clambers onto it, looking at the woman he can no longer deny he would dearly wish to have as a goodsister. He’d lacked any misgivings about the depth of their connection for some years, but it was only when he’d come in the night before to find Jaime talking softly to her about one of their melees that he saw something that was blindingly obvious, but which he hadn’t ever considered. That Jaime loves her as much, if not more, than he ever had Cersei. Than he ever _could_ have. Tyrion isn’t sure precisely what it was about the scene that struck him so, for in all of the panic of the last few days, it had been very ordinary. _Perhaps that is it._ In any case, now he knows for certain. He looks at Brienne and wills her to live.

She doesn’t respond.

“He told me you’re stubborn,” Tyrion says, turning back to his book. But a few pages see him groaning with boredom. The library here on Tarth, such as it is, is pitiful, full of martial texts and little else. This is his third reading of this weary tome, the second of which was aloud, though he is half-afraid the tiresome work might have made the Evenstar more unwilling to wake. “This is the driest history of Braavos I have ever read, Brienne. How do you even go about writing a dull history of Braavos? It’s Braavos,” he comments, turning the page and sighing at yet another description of the Titan which makes it seem less interesting.

There is a low moan from the pale figure on the pallet and Brienne’s eyes flicker open, only to close again. “Head,” she mutters, her voice starved of moisture. “Hurts.”

Tyrion hops down from his stool and waddles across to the pallet, dropping the thrice-blasted book on the floor as he goes. “Brienne?”

Her eyes reopen and she squints at him as if confused. “Tyrion?”

“That’s good, Brienne,” he says, trying to keep his voice down. “How are you feeling?”

“Where’s Jaime?”

Tyrion resists the urge to laugh at that in relief. “I made him go and get some sleep. He’s been awake for days. Would you like some water? I’d offer wine, but Arth said I couldn’t, if you woke.”

The Evenstar closes her eyes and nods with some difficulty. Tyrion goes to fetch a cup of water from a small table outside, reaching down to tug on Jaime’s uncovered toes as he passes by the small mattress on which he lies.

He comes back into the Maester’s study and hastens his steps. “What are you doing, Brienne?” She has risen to sit on the pallet, her legs splayed as she braces the weight of her torso on the bed with her arms, looking slightly uncertain.

Tyrion supports the back of her head and raises the cup to her mouth, tipping it carefully. Brienne takes a few long sips. She smiles at him weakly but gratefully, only for it to shift into something more akin to apology. “I need to make water, Tyrion.”

“That’s good too,” he says as he looks between the giant woman and the chamberpot in the corner, wondering quite how he will manage to marry the two. “You didn’t piss for a couple of days. You had Arth quite worried for a while. Well, all of us, truly.” He tries to sound encouraging, but no matter how he holds his arms out, he can’t work out a way to get her atop it, even if he brings it closer.

“Don’t worry, Tyrion, I think I can help with that,” Jaime says as he comes in, closing the door behind him.

Tyrion goes back to his stool and watches his brother crouch in front of the woman he loves. “Good morning, Brienne, “ Jaime says, unable to hide the pitch of sheer joy in his voice. “Shall we pretend the wall over there is a tree? For old times sake?”

For her part, the lady’s eyes are made extraordinary, as if lit from within, as Jaime draws close. She smiles wanly and nods. “At least I have two working legs this time,” she says.

Jaime laughs, a sound like soft, fresh rushes in this small room. He folds his arms around hers as Brienne pulls her long legs back, rocking herself weakly up to her feet. Jaime leans backwards and Brienne doesn’t quite seem to have full balance yet, so they end up slamming into the cupboards behind Jaime. “Sort of,” he grunts, as wood creaks and Brienne quietly mutters an apology, wincing at the sound. Jaime kisses her, only to frown. “Your breath is perfectly foul,” he says, though he clearly doesn’t care as he does so again. “Are you ready?” he asks.

The Evenstar scowls at the man she loves. “As if yours smells like roses.” Then she nods against him, the faintest smile covering her. “Yes, Jaime.”

They seem to wrestle in place for a few seconds, securing the lock of their arms. Then, at a slight muttering from Jaime, he walks her firmly across the short space to the wall, the muscles straining in his back. Brienne hits the wall with a fair thump and as they crouch in time, in a practised way, Tyrion finds himself wondering if they’ve ever fucked angrily. He can only think it would be damaging to any nearby furniture. They really are both massively strong.

The Lady begins to piss. _Like a horse. She really did need it._ Tyrion looks up at the dark, wooden cupboard doors, only to hear Brienne moan. “I think I’m missing it,” she says in frustration, slumping forwards against his brother. The sound of her making her water changes. “Wait, that might be better,” she amends, turning her head against Jaime’s shoulder so she can look at him.

For his part, Jaime just smiles at her. “At least you aren’t pissing on my boots this time. And I won’t have to pick bits of stubborn tree bark from your neck afterwards.”

Brienne nods, her lank hair shining dully in the light cast in from the small, high window of the study. “I don’t feel right, Jaime,” she says quietly. “What happened to me? How long ago?”

She is done with the chamberpot, so Jaime rises, hauling up the mass of the Evenstar with him. They shift, almost gracefully, until Brienne’s arms are wrapped around Jaime’s waist and he holds her to him. Again, the Lady’s head drops to rest on his brother, who tries, and fails, to hide the concern in his voice. “What’s the last thing you can remember?”

There is a long silence and from his place in the corner, Tyrion can just about see Brienne’s forehead wrinkle as she struggles with memory. But then she damn near giggles like a young girl, whispering, “Tyrion came in his ugly, ridiculous ship. With the lions.”

Tyrion can’t help but let out a short cry of protest, at which Brienne looks in his direction, seeming to have difficulty in finding him. “Is he still here?” she asks.

Jaime spares him a quick glance of shared, new concern. “Ignore him. I try to.”

Suddenly, Brienne stands tall, smiling down at Jaime, all broken teeth and freckles, as if proud of herself. “Oh, he kicked you, Jaime! You said it would bruise.” But then she drops her head to him again, though whether it was the effort of smiling so or straightening up that is troublesome to her is hard to tell.

“And so it did,” he quietly laughs, then becoming serious. “It’s been four days, Brienne. You were attacked by a man with a small blade. Its edge was laced with scorpion venom. Or so Charro thinks.”

“My hand,” Brienne mutters.

“Yes,” Jaime says, “the knife cut through your hand.”

“No, Jaime,” she replies, looking at him, her eyes turning a touch wild. “I can’t feel my hand. Is my left hand moving, Tyrion?”

Tyrion sees large fingers weakly moving against the skin of his brother’s lower back. “Yes, Brienne. A little.”

“I can’t _feel_ it, Jaime.” There is no mistaking the edge of panic in her now, though Jaime tries to put her worries to rest.

“Brienne,” he says, “let’s not worry just yet. You just woke. It’ll probably...”

The door slams open to admit a frantic looking Maester. “Why is the door closed? What is she doing on her feet?” Arth pauses, taking in the pair by the chamberpot and the acrid smell emanating from it. “Oh, good. Very good. It’s nice to see you awake, Brienne.” He points at the pallet. “Now back to bed with you.”

As Jaime and Brienne begin another curious dance, moving her around to her resting place, Tyrion steps over to the Maester. “Her head is hurting. She can’t feel her hand. And I’m not sure she can see very far.”

“I’ve not gone _deaf,_ Tyrion,” the Lady grunts as Jaime lowers her to the thin mattress.

“Other than that, she is as charming as she ever was,” he adds mildly, and he thinks he hears Brienne wearily sigh _‘Bloody Lannisters’_ against his brother, who is one no more, after all.

/-/-/-/-/

It is another three days before Arth will let Brienne leave for their rooms and then it is only under the condition that he will visit her every hour or two, even during the night. Brienne has become increasingly irritable under the rather intense care of the thin Maester, for all that he means well and she is still quite weak. She is chafing at her own inaction, wanting to properly fill her role as the ruler of Tarth, despite the fact that Pod, Kholo, Charro and Fredrick are keeping things running smoothly in her absence.

Jaime helps Lolla dress her in simple breeches, shirt, boots, a blue cloak and soft gloves for the short move through the winding corridors of Evenfall and across the yard, after Brienne finds the task too fiddly with her off hand in its current state. She’s refused even the protection of hardened leathers and it had made him angry. Though he tried to hide it, and to hide his fear for her, Brienne knew. “I need to be seen, Jaime,” she’d explained. “And I need to be seen as unafraid.”

Lolla makes her sit on her pallet to neatly comb and tie back her hair, so that she doesn’t have to. Jaime is caught by the idea that this is something Lolla hasn't done since Brienne was a very small child and as he watches them both hum happily at the skilled movement of little fingers and a bone comb over and through long, seemingly untamable hair, he is, for a short amount of time, very glad for them both.

Her sight had recovered within an hour of her waking, and a day or so saw the soreness in her head ease considerably, but Arth is uncertain as to whether or not Brienne’s hand will improve. There simply hasn’t  been enough time to tell. But Jaime knows it is preying on Brienne’s mind, that she is not as strong as she was, that she will never be again, even if she will not share her concerns with him just now. They will talk later, though. He will make sure of it.

When they are done, the Evenstar emerges from the small chamber that has seen her life saved, though she is not quite herself. She appears almost nervous as she stands in the larger, near empty space of the wounded, awaiting her escort. Brienne knows that even if it has only been a few days, she is visibly thinner than she was and now she seems as awkward as Jaime remembers her being when she was very young.

It doesn’t last. More people gather in the hallway outside and the muted murmuring floating in through the oaken door shielding her from her peoples’ eyes appears to straighten her shoulders and lend steel to Brienne’s spine.

Still, Jaime steps up to her. “Are you sure you’re strong enough, Brienne?"

She smiles down at him, the irony of the question lost on neither of them. "Yes, Jaime."

"Remember, if you decide that, somewhere along the way, inspecting a room full of barrels is important, nobody will mind," he lightly offers. One at a time, he straightens her shirtsleeves and picks away imaginary flecks of dirt from the clean, cream material of her shirt, his fingers darting around from shoulder, to arm, to waist.

A gloved hand with no feeling grasps his chin _with_ feeling and he sees her watch it as she lifts his face to meet hers squarely. "Jaime. I want us to go _home_."

They look at each other and Jaime knows that neither of them is thinking of an island, surrounded by sapphire seas, or a dark stone fortress, sat atop an equally dark stone rock.

They are both thinking now of a single room. Not even two. _One._ One with three battered looking chairs by a tiny fireplace. Of a sturdy, plain table, on which they have happily and, occasionally, unhappily fucked. Of a small chest, under one of two small windows, heaving with their armour. Of a metal bath, hanging long on a heavy hook on the wall, waiting for its near daily burden.

Of a warm bed that is their own.

"Then we should go home," Jaime says and steps away from her.

They gather protectively around the Evenstar. Jaime and Pod will travel the halls behind her, as they ever do. Arth and Lolla will walk at her sides, taking the edge of menace from her armed guard. In front, daggers drawn, Charro and Arya shall go, for all that Arya and Gendry have just finished arguing her role in this. Unborn child in her small, rounded stomach or not, the Little Wolf has refused her husband’s wish that anybody else take her place. “Don’t be stupid, Gendry!” she’d said. “Anybody who so much as threatens her will be torn to pieces on the spot. And probably not by us.” So ended his objection.

She is right, Jaime thinks. Only one person on Tarth is more heavily guarded than Brienne now, and it isn't Tyrion. It is the Slave from Meereen, as he has come to be known. There have been no less than six separate attempts by various blue cloaks to breach the security around the Hole and kill the assassin. The attempt on Brienne’s life has been met with pure rage on the part of some and Kholo has been run ragged trying to keep the Knights of Tarth in line. Even Jaime himself had been forbidden entry to see the prisoner and he found he could hardly argue with Kholo’s reasoning when he bluntly said, “Vengeance should be hers.” She isn’t one for vengeance and they all know it, but there is only one way this can end. It is right that she should choose the way of it.

At Brienne’s word, the door is opened, those outside made quiet as mice by it when they make their way out. As she had wished, the pace they move at is not too fast. She needs to be _seen_ to be in good health, even if it is at this time, for the most part, a lie.

Those gathered to watch her progress do so in silence at first, their backs pressed into the stone of the walls as if seeking strength in it, driven by concern to be there, to see their leader. Brienne’s shoulders are square and her steps are firm and Jaime sees, as she turns her head to a group of her younger students, that she is smiling with a reassuring confidence, though her features are pale with what he knows is the strain of it. They get close to the entrance to the yard and a short figure steps into their path. Brienne reaches out to clasp Charro’s twitching arm. “It is well, Ser. I will step forward.”

She does, to meet Rosie, the young, very similarly freckled townswoman. She is holding Nia, her daughter, who is much grown over the last year. The little girl is clasping a sorry-looking yellow flower in her stubborn fists. “M’lady Brienne,” Rosie says, “I hope you don’t mind us stopping you, but Nia picked this earlier and I thought you might like it. I know it’s a bit wilted- “

Brienne takes the little flower from the hands of the strong babe after a small tug or two and smiles down at the battered looking bloom. “It is well, Rosie. I can honestly say this is the best flower I’ve ever been given.”

“We are all so glad you are feeling better. But you look a bit tired, so please don’t work too hard for a while.”

“I’ll try not to. Thank you both.”

As if a spell is broken by it, it is the sound of Brienne’s voice that ends the dreadful silence cloaking those watching the Evenstar. A small hum of chatter picks up behind him as Rosie steps away and their little group surrounds Brienne once more. It increases, becoming markedly happier and louder as they move out into the yard. There is only a narrow path through the crowd. Brienne purposely slows as they make their way along it and Jaime hears feet hitting stone as shorter people towards the back of the masses surrounding them leap time and again to catch a glimpse of her.

Hands reach out towards Brienne in a way they never normally would and there is a snick when, near as one, the knights around her draw more daggers, but the hands of those in the crowd are empty and Brienne firmly shakes her head. She reaches out to Jaryn across Arya’s shoulder, just ahead of her. His fingers are hovering near his chin, unsure, and Brienne clasps them firmly. The farmer can say nothing at first, but his resulting smile could light a beacon, were it needed. They move forward yet more slowly and as they pass the smallholder by, he calls, “There will be more dawnberries soon!”

Brienne glances back at him and simply says, “Thank you, Jaryn.”

Where her words to Rosie stopped silence, those to the farmer bring forth a roar, almost of acclamation, the force of which appears to stun the Evenstar into stillness. Jaime sees Pod reach out to clasp her shoulder, for he cannot, and Brienne breathes deeply in front of them, her head bowing under the weight of it.

But then she stands straight again and takes a single step, her arm moving out in front of him so shecan touch the outstretched hand of an extremely aged woman, one of Lolla’s weavers, he believes. Cathre, if he recalls the name correctly. That the woman, of such great age, has climbed so far, is a real achievement in and of itself, and speaks largely to what Brienne has become to her people.

So they go, painfully slowly now, and more hands come.

Jaime’s eyes flick about in the old, skilled way, but he doesn’t think he was ever as scared as a member of the Kingsguard as he is right now. Even when he was just a boy, his nerves near hidden, even from himself, and so very green. Before he became the Kingslayer.

_But then, I learned to care little for Aerys in such a short time._

And time has given him nothing but more care for Brienne. Ever more. It simply never stops and even this short journey has proven it.

As they come close to the door that leads up to her private quarters, Jaime begins to relax, seeing that there is nothing in those assembled here other than a need for comfort.

Hands reach out, over and over, yet they bear nothing but a wish for her wellbeing or a simple need to feel her. Alive. And that he can well understand. Finding Tyrion trying to work out just how to get her, sat as awkwardly as she was, to the pisspot, or it to her, will always be one of the most joyous moments of his whole life. So whilst he doesn’t stop being aware of what is happening, he lets the fingers brush the soft material of her shirt, unimpeded even by his glares.

Brienne holds her composure until the door to the stairwell closes. She immediately begins to hunch over and both he and Pod step up to support her, almost kicking Arth and Lolla out of their way.

Arth scrambles up the steps before them, looking back over his shoulder, indignant at his having been shown to be right, glaring furiously at Jaime. “I told you it was too soon!”

It is Brienne who answers the Maester, though she is heavy as she wraps an arm about his shoulders, and then another about her dear boy’s too. “You saw them all. _They_ needed it. It may be too soon for me, but for them it was almost too late. I will not have a small blade bring chaos to this island.”

Arth picks himself up, pulling at his robes with a scowl as they catch underfoot, making his lips so thin they almost disappear. “Can you get her up to her bed?”

“Yes,” Jaime says. And they do, though it takes a while.

They find his brother in the Evenstar’s chamber, having made an attempt to make the bedding look well by himself. “Where is your guard, Tyrion?” Brienne asks, even as she falls, a hair’s breadth from sleep, across and into the softness of their bed.

It takes a few of them to haul her weary body about until her head reaches the pillows. Tyrion drags her feet to their proper place, then removes her boots. “Her toes are very big, aren’t they?”

“Shut up, Tyrion,” mutter Pod and Lolla.

“I’ll say one thing for this island,” Tyrion replies, tucking the large, supple boots under the edge of the bed. “It’s good for keeping a man’s feet on the ground.”

“A good thing, in your case,” Lolla whispers as she fusses with the blankets.

Tyrion grins at her and takes a seat by the small fire he has set in the hearth, opposite Ser Arya. “Are you well, goodsister?”

The Little Wolf nods, watching the flames. “She is still tiring so easily.”

“It’s been but a few days since she woke, Ser,” Arth says, patting her on the head as one would a child. “Give her time.” The Maester takes them through the care Brienne will need as Pod removes Jaime’s light armour, the sound of unbuckling seeming too loud in the quiet of voices hushed as the Evenstar sleeps.

Then those filling this room, making it strange to Jaime, disperse. Arth is the last to leave, turning back to him as he does so, nothing but concern in him. “You need to rest too, Jaime. Get some more sleep. I’ll come back in around two hours.”

Then there is only the sound of Brienne’s breathing, deep and welcome, to be heard. Jaime lies down next to her, bone weary himself, but finds he is unable to rest. He watches his Brienne in the grip of a more familiar sleep, one where her lashes sit low, arcing over her cheeks without the flickering of convulsions and where her nose occasionally twitches as some thought or another comes to her in her dreams. He kisses her forehead and pulls her closer, only to have her burrow her face into his neck, little happy murmurings escaping her.

They fill him with such happiness as he has rarely known, more so even than when she first woke. They give him hope that not only will she live, but that, despite the fractured memories coming back to her, she does not hate him for having failed her.

All he can is watch the mop of her hair, let loose by Lolla, and feel her lips against him, each warm wash of her breathing a prayer answered, when he had always thought even his own the words of a fool.

There are some sounds of movement in his old chamber and soon enough Arth is returned. “I will stay in your room for a few days. I hope you don’t mind?”

Jaime shakes his head slowly and Brienne nuzzles at him. He can almost feel her smile against him. Arth seems pleased enough with this alone. “Have you slept at all yet?” Another head shake and the thin man nods. “I thought as much. I will be back in another hour. Then I will have to wake her. Now sleep, Jaime.”

He does and wakes to Brienne smiling down at him. A pattern is set, one of broken sleep and of a Maester being greeted by ever more loathsome words and phrases, though happiness is so close at hand. Barring the occasional brief trip to the hall for food, for she feels she must be seen, Brienne is isolated here whilst she recovers at her own request. “I must been seen, yes, but not seen as weak.”

Each day finds her remaining awake for longer and Jaime’s biceps begin to bruise as he insists she tests the strength of her grip on him. Her right hand is as it ever was, albeit lacking a little practise, but her left is not. And still she cannot feel it. Progress is slow and the future uncertain. But they persevere.

“Patience,” the Maester tells them, time and again. “Have patience, and we will see what comes.”

/-/-/-/-/

“As you can see at the edges of the plate, they’re much lighter, even if they don’t look it.” Brienne flexes her fingers in her new gauntlets. They give the appearance of her being at full strength in movement, even if she isn’t yet. Even if it doesn’t come at all.

“Thank you, Gendry. I couldn’t have hoped for better in such a short time.” Trying on her original armour a few days ago had not only been crushingly tiring, but had proven her left hand incapable of movement under thicker metal and leather. And she couldn’t go into today with the fresh scars on her hand showing. Of all days, not today.

“It took a few of us,” the dark-haired smith says, “but we’re quite pleased with them.”

“As am I, Ser. Thank everybody for their hard work.”

“I will, m’lady.” They watch the Knightsmith gather his tools into a heavy sack and leave, with one last happy look at his latest creations.

“They really are very good,” Brienne says, curling her left hand into a light fist. The lack of sensation in it is a curious, unsettling thing.

Jaime steps to her side, unimpressed by her new metal, or possibly ignoring it entirely. Instead he is all warm concern. “You don’t have to do this now, Brienne.”

She looks at him sadly. “I think I do, Jaime. The Queen has spoken," she says, glancing in the direction of the written order on the table. "Besides, I don't want Tarth to be like this." As much as he has tried to shield her from the problems that have arisen since the attempt on her life, she has had visitors and she would be worthless as a leader if she allowed herself to be kept in the dark. "And Catelyn Stark told me once that her husband would never condemn a man he wasn’t willing to kill himself.”

His concern gives way to a flash of frustrated anger. “I don’t give a single frosty fuck about the honour of long dead wolves, Brienne. I care that you might collapse in exhaustion under the weight of your own metal because it is _too soon_ for you to be wearing it!”

“It’s been a fortnight and I’m getting stronger every day.”

“It’s been a fortnight and you’re sleeping all the hours the gods see fit to spare you. And you’re still tired!” Brienne has to look away from him, for what he says is true.

“Jaime,” Pod says, stepping in front of Brienne to secure her cloak, “we can’t stop her. And I don't think we should.” Though the dark eyes of her boy are no less unhappy than the green ones she turns back to see.

“I have to do this.”

“I’m worried about you,” Jaime says, his bare fingers stroking around the knot of hair tied at the nape of her neck.

She nods, more at herself than him. "We should do this now. Whilst my strength is with me."

She sees the two men share a last, quiet look of concern, but then they move to leave, making their way down the stairwell to the yard in silence. As they approach the door separating the private chambers of her people from the world at large, they become aware of the voices spilling through it, muted and dark.

_So many voices._

She hesitates and feels Jaime reach for her again. “This isn’t a day for mercy, Brienne,” he needlessly warns, though she does find some comfort in his saying it. “However much you would like to show it. We are with you.” Pod pats her shoulder and she glances back, grateful for them both, even as she knocks on the door and it opens before her.

The courtyard is as full as she has ever seen it, even more so than when she had left Arth’s chambers. But where that day saw a sense of happiness in her people, this one is different. This place is filled with an uneasy mix of noise. Some are here to see blood, that much is clear, with a small number of people cheering her arrival and jeering at the chained man being held firmly in place by Kholo in a small space in the middle of the crowd. Others are skittish and nervous, quiet mutterings of words Brienne cannot quite hear making a hum in the air around her. And still others are silent. These are the ones who trouble her the most. Those knights remaining so are supporting her, and she welcomes it, but many of them are smallfolk. They are afraid and she can near smell it.

_I am afraid too. Today they will see me differently. I must not be weak._

Long strides take her through her people and she forces herself to remain as stern as she has ever been, only to flinch in her armour as she sees what sits about ten feet from the prisoner, waiting for her. _How can this be?_

The sight of her father’s huge chair, clearly long since repaired and safely stowed away by hands unknown, never used, strikes her heavily. Justice is normally swift and less formal on Tarth. But what happens today must be seen and known. Word of it must travel. Future attacks must be discouraged, so this will be a very public event. And some older resident of Tarth has obviously remembered that this was the chair in which Lord Selwyn Tarth would sit, when justice called for his service.

_Please be with me now, father._

She walks across and sits on the dark wood, and it feels smaller than it should, for she hadn’t dared to sit in it herself since she was quite young. She wraps her fingers over the carved sea dragons flowing over the ends of the arm rests and knows the weight her father once bore, for it is, like this chair, now hers.

A strangled hush falls over the assembled host.

“Bring the prisoner closer, Ser Kholo,” she orders. Kholo marches the man forward and the sound of his chains is loud in her ears. Kholo pushes down into the prisoner’s calf with his heel, driving him awkwardly onto his knees. And kicks again. It reminds her of Jaime’s trial, so many years ago, and Brienne reaches up with her injured hand, a gesture she makes as firm and clear as she can. “Cease, Ser.”

It is only as she sits here now that she can appreciate the pressure the Queen must have been under to see Jaime dead. _Would that I could show such mercy. Would that I were strong enough. But in truth, I am no Dragon._

She looks at the prisoner. He is a little bruised in places, but far less injured than she had expected him to be, given that she knows he has been questioned by Charro. The very thought gives her chills. The knight’s knowledge in the effective use of small blades far surpasses that in anybody she has ever known. Last evening, they had been alone in this place while they had partaken of a macabre dance as she practised what is likely to come to pass today. But whatever form his questions took, the man in front of her seems close to free of injury. “I am told you have not yet given your name. Will you not share it with us?”

Dark eyes regard her impassively. Then the prisoner shakes his head and makes to speak. He coughs at his first attempt, his weeks of silence having taken a toll on his voice which, when it comes, is rough and unsteady, thickly accented but clear. “I will share a name of yours, if you will hear it.”

Brienne braces herself. She has had so many names and very few of them good. “I will hear it.”

Defiance twists the man’s face as he looks up at her. “They call you the Scourge of Meereen.”

Her gut writhes unpleasantly and she can see her knuckles turning a deathly white on the dark wood. She had guessed that she wouldn’t be remembered well in Essos, for it was all so badly done, the Queen’s wishes unbending against any kind of reason. She asks a question she believes she knows the answer to. “Why?”

The prisoner laughs in his place on the floor, joylessly, yet with a sharp edge. Then words kept in begin to fall from him at speed. “Why? You ask why? You killed so many of us. You said that you came to set us free, but all you brought with you was death. You killed us in battle. You killed us with dragon’s fire. You killed us, even after you left.”

“How so?” Brienne asks quietly.

“How many do you think died in the deserts when they were forced out of our city? And what about those of us who made it to Yunkai? Do you think we were welcomed there? We were slaves. We had nothing. Most of us were sick and worthless. Those that weren’t made to leave again starved in the streets. The ashes of the dead, young and old, are thick on the roads of Essos. Our dead.” He glares at her, any pretence of calm gone and though he is clearly learned, his grief is vast, grinding all else in him to dust. “And _yours_.”

“How many?” Brienne doesn’t want to know. But she must.

“Thousands,” he seethes and the word cuts her more than any blade ever could.

“So you came here to kill me.” It is no question.

“Yes,” the man says. It is a simple confirmation, made firmly and without fear, though his nostrils flare as he utters it.

“And had you succeeded?”

“Then I would have killed your Queen. I would do it now, were she here.”

Brienne slams her eyes shut. She both wishes his words unsaid and said. Unsaid, then perhaps she could have returned him to Essos, for all that might have risked her position here. Said, as they have been, the prisoner is certainly already dead and it pains her. “Do you know you have just sealed your fate?” she asks with sadness.

There is, however, no sadness in him. He smiles, as if in victory. “Yes. I would not live to have you know my name. I would not have anyone know it. For I _failed_. But I don’t think I will be the last to try.” His face twists, and it is as if a curtain falls away. There is more than grief in him. There is hatred too, and it spills out of him in a torrent. “I hope you live in fear of it every day. I hope your gods see fit to rot you from the inside, that the misery I have seen in others breaks your mind and body. And that your Queen suffers endless torments for her blight on my people. That the pain of so many becomes _hers_. ”

There are shouts and cries all about and rotten food is even thrown at the prisoner. Brienne feels distant from herself, noting the foul pieces of fish sliding down the man’s face and dropping to the ground. She raises her sword hand to bring back the quiet and calm. As it comes she lowers her hand and grasps at sea dragons, albeit that she can only feel one. She hears a light tap on the back of her chair. Jaime and Pod step forward and turn to face her, each standing a hair’s breadth from a new gauntlet, their backs turned to those watching.

“If you don’t kill him, I will,” Jaime whispers.

“Not if I get to him first,” Pod follows.

She wants to tell them that they aren’t helping, but just a quick look around tells her that not only are they furious, but that every blue cloak in the yard is poised to wreak bloody vengeance. Some have their swords half drawn already.

Brienne stands, wondering at the anger thickening the air. She is empty of it. In this man’s place, she isn’t sure she would feel so very differently. “You will hold your positions, Sers,” she says to the knights at her side. She raises her voice. “You will _all_ hold your positions. That is an order!”

She steps forward and kneels in front of the prisoner. At her movement, the man shows his first sign of uncertainty. “You will not strike my head off with your cursed sword?” he asks. His fingers tremble slightly.

“No.” _I’m not yet sure I could do it cleanly._ Brienne reaches to a small sheath tied to her swordbelt. She draws a relic of another time, something which has been with her since the end of the Winter War, found only when it was no longer needed. “This dagger is made of dragonglass. You have threatened the life of the Dragon Queen, so it will be this that ends your life. I'll make it swift.”

Reassured of his end, the prisoner’s feature settle into disdain. “Add me to the number who died trekking the desert wastes from Meereen. To those you killed with your swords and your knights. To those your Queen burned with the breath of her dragons.”

“I will,” Brienne says, for she can feel the burden of so many dead making her heavy, even now. "Are there any words of prayer you would like to say before I carry out the sentence?"

"To whom?” he asks, full of scorn. “For what? For mercy or kindness? There is no hope for it, not from the likes of _you_." He leans forwards suddenly and spits into her face and another roar echoes about the yard. Brienne raises her hand for quiet once more, and shakes her head at Kholo, whose arakh is now fully drawn.

"Not today," Brienne says sadly to the man she must kill. She reaches out, clasping the side of his neck carefully but firmly with her left hand, as she had done to Charro when night covered Tarth. "Are you ready?"

The prisoner says no more, his breath coming fast as he nods.

It is as swift as she had promised. A thrust to his neck, a twist and his end is upon him. Brienne hardly has time to drop the blade and catch him as he falls against her. She eases him to the ground and leans over him, holding the deep wound open. She can see that the man inside is already gone. There are quiet moans and a few, deeply unsettling cheers whilst blood pumps out, covering her gauntlets and spreading in a dark, uneven pool over the cobbles. When it slows to a stop, she kneels upright, feeling numb as she straightens the dead man’s limbs, leaving violent red fingermarks on him.

She stands again and looks at her people and thinks they must now believe her made of stone. She quails at it and at what she has just done. She looks at the prisoner a final time and can hear his blood dripping from her right gauntlet on to the stone. She sees it fall. She sees it flowing out slowly across the yard. She sees it on her boots and the front of her legs. On her cloak.

It is the sight of red sullying blue, making it black, that jars her into movement. She jerks into motion, making her way to her only Ulthosi knight. “Ser Charro,” she softly asks, her voice somehow seeming vast in the now noiseless space, “how were the dead of Meereen treated?”

“The bodies of slaves in Meereen were burned,” he says, trying to be matter-of-fact, but barely masking his concern for her. He knows how much she did not want this.

“You will see it is done with dignity,” Brienne tells him. “Ensure that there is a marker where his ashes are placed. He should be remembered, as should his people.”

“Yes, my Lady Evenstar.”

She moves again and welcomes the sound of the soft footsteps of Pod and Jaime behind her. Her knights are unmoved by what has happened, but the smallfolk edge away from her as she passes them by. _It is as I expected. They will fear me now._ And it only takes one of them to near break her heart.

_Lolla._

She pauses by the little woman, but doesn’t have to gaze directly at her to know that this most precious lady will not even look at her, even covering her eyes and turning away as she weeps in her spot by the wall. Brienne swallows and holds her head high, now only longing for privacy.

_Just a few more steps._

Before she can make sense of it, she is inside and trudging her way back up the stairs. She doesn’t make it far though, the sight of dearest Lolla turning from her too fresh, the warm, wet stickiness of a man’s lifeblood coating her too terrible.

She slumps on the edge of the first landing, drained. Jaime crouches next to her, his words of comfort indistinct to her ears. He wipes at her face with corner of his cloak, taking away what remains of the spittle of the man she has just ended. _And blood. More blood._ Pod kneels in front of her, his fingers working in a fury to free her from her metal. He loosens buckle after buckle and each piece of plate is placed into other hands to be taken away, up to her armoury for cleaning. He cannot remove it all, but whatever he can, he does.

All thoughts of Lolla and Tarth drop away and Brienne can only think of one, overwhelming burden that she will now have to carry, as she told the prisoner she would.

_How can I not? Thousands. Thousands dead because of me._

/-/-/-/-/

He has only been gone for the time it took him to have Pod strip him of his metal, but Jaime can hear that Brienne is no longer alone. He makes his way back to her chamber and leans against the edge of the doorway, as is his habit; now watching an old woman look older as she apologizes, her tongue tripping its way through rapidly muttered sentences. “Please, Enni. Please tell me I haven’t upset you. I didn’t mean to. I would never mean to. You know that. I’m so sorry.”

Brienne sits in a closed kind of silence as Lolla’s hands dart about, each flick of a short arm accompanied by yet another plea. As kindly as they are meant, Jaime’s teeth grind at her words and at the sadness cloaking Brienne. She had known this might happen. She’d _feared_ it. And he’d seen Brienne react to Lolla in the yard, though perhaps no one else did. He’d felt it in his very bones, the wave of horror as she realized that her dearest Lolla couldn’t even _look_ at her.

Another whispered phrase falls from the old woman’s lips and it pushes hot anger through Jaime’s blood. “What did you think we were doing here, Lolla?” he says, bluntly, walking around the bed to them. “Did you think we were playing at being knights? That it was all melees and wooden swords for your entertainment?”

“No!” the little woman cries out, still wiping at the remnants of blood that had found its way under Brienne’s armour, tainting her skin. She doesn’t stop looking at Brienne, sounding almost meek as she continues. “I was just shocked, is all. I’d never seen Enni kill anyone before.”

“It’s what we do,” he says. “It’s what we teach others to do.” He sits next to Brienne, feeling the ropes under the soft mattress sag and then tighten under the added weight.

“I know, Jaime!” Lolla protests. “I’m not an idiot.”

“Then don’t act like one,” Jaime spits, unapologetically, almost cruelly. He has no wish to coat his words with honey, to make their years of work on Tarth anything it hasn’t been. He doesn’t see why he should have to. _Why can’t she see it? How can she not have known?_

_“Stop.”_

Just a single, whispered word is enough for them both to find reason. Jaime turns to Brienne and rests his lips on her shoulder. “Yes,” he says, watching Lolla move to stroke at Brienne’s hands.

He takes a deep breath and calms himself. He looks directly at the little woman once more, his voice now placid. “Don’t mistake me, Lolla. We aren’t all monsters. But if you think that I would have had so much as a second thought about doing what Brienne has done today, you are wrong. And you know I’m not the only one.” He looks at his love, speaking as if to her, though he is not. “But Brienne does. She always _has_. Because she is the _best_ of us.”

Lolla pats his knee in understanding. “Yes, Jaime. I _know_. And please don’t worry, Enni,” she adds, “I’ve seen my fair share of blood, after all.” She fumbles at the cloth she is holding, a sudden, deep frown making her forehead look like a freshly ploughed field. “I even killed a couple of men in the war myself. Though I wasn’t very good at it,” she mutters, as if ashamed of a failing within herself. “I killed one with a broomstick at Fallsong, but it took ages,” she explains softly. “Well, it _felt_ like an age.” 

Brienne reaches out to touch Lolla’s hair with fondness and care, and the old woman, never being one to openly dwell in sadness for too long, brightens, saying, “ _You_ did it very well. It was so quick!”

Jaime doesn’t doubt for a second that Brienne doesn’t find some bleak amusement in having an execution so judged, but it goes unseen. “Thank you, Lolla,” she says, with the utmost seriousness, turning to him. Jaime can feel her willing him to be so too as she asks, “A broomstick? I’ve never killed anyone with a broomstick. Have you, Ser Jaime?”

He pretends to be thinking on the matter as he grounds himself. “I can’t say as I have. It sounds like a damned foolish thing to try.” He immediately smiles at Lolla, with some measure of approval. “Though you’d have to be quite brave, I should think.”

“More like desperate,” Lolla shrugs, made nearly bashful under their scrutiny. “There were children.”

“Come here, Lolla.” Jaime taps at her arm with his stump, shifting his leg so she can step in. His ire is gone now, as the mere thought of this tiny woman, driven to defend the young so long ago with nothing more than a stick really strikes him.

_She is not a soldier. She will never be a soldier. But she has fought, when it was needed._

His handless arm pulls her close, her head tucked in against his chest, and Brienne wraps her arms about them both, pressing a soft kiss to Lolla’s hair before she lets her head rest on Jaime’s shoulder.

They both feel Lolla gently weep against them.

“You’ve never spoken of it, Lolla?” Brienne asks. “Not even to Fredrick?”

Grey hair moves from side to side in the crook of Jaime’s elbow. “There was so much blood!” Despite her face being buried between them, Lolla’s words are clear. “I’m sorry, Enni. That’s why I was as I was today. I forgot about the blood in it. In killing.” She looks up at them both, her eyes red. “Why aren’t other things the same? I was with Ser Halten when he fell from his horse, and he bled everywhere. But it just isn’t the same.”

“No,” Brienne mutters flatly. “It isn’t.”

Lolla pushes herself away from them. “I’m sorry, Enni. I should go. I didn’t mean to...”

“Lolla,” Brienne says. “You don’t have to...”

“I do!” is the reply, even as small shoulders grow square and determined. “If I’m going to get all teary-eyed about something that happened so long ago, it’s best I do it alone. You’ve had enough to endure today, little one.” She beckons the Evenstar forward and kisses her cheek. Then she stands herself in front of them, both proud and hiding, and Jaime couldn’t think more of her for it.

“You get some rest. I will speak to you soon enough.” She makes to move, but then looks back. “As for the gathering we discussed this morning, Enni...well, I suppose you can bring _him_. If he can keep his tongue in check. And if he will come.” That last is said with some faint hope.

Jaime knows nothing of any gathering, though that is hardly a surprise, so he lets it lie as the little woman bustles out, holding on as much as she can to her own dignity.

A door closes and silence falls. Jaime won’t bear it for long. Brienne can become too quiet after killing, as he well remembers from their years of fighting together. After their most terrible battles, where she ended men, not monsters, she could think too much. He stands and walks over to sit on a chair by the fireplace. “What did she mean about a gathering?”

Brienne follows him and, when seated, starts to remove her boots. “She wanted to celebrate Fredrick having served for so long. When he passes things over to Pollus.”

“She’ll celebrate anything,” he says, nearly raising a smile from Brienne as she drops her boots to one side. _Her hand is improving, even if she still can’t feel it._ “I’m surprised she doesn’t rope Aryena into a sing-song whenever you receive a raven.”

Brienne laughs, but it is a hollow, small thing.

She slowly folds her arms over her chest. “They will see me differently now, Jaime.”

“Not all of them,” he counters. “And your position isn’t weakened, by any means. If anything, it is the opposite.”

“That isn’t the point.”

“I know.” Jaime leans forward, intent on having her hear him now, for he knows it is not just a single death that is troubling her. "He was wrong, Brienne. You did not want a city destroyed. You didn't burn it. It is enough that you carry those you've killed in battle. To have you bear all of the dead of Meereen would be madness." She tries to avoid his gaze, but Jaime won't have it. " _Brienne_. Thousands may well have died, but you _serve_. You did _not_ kill them."

"It doesn't matter, Jaime," she says. "It was ill done. And they are still dead."

Silence wins out and they sit for a goodly while in it. Brienne watches the flames dance in the fireplace, and Jaime watches her. She is too good, too kind, he thinks, for the work she has had to do today and he knows this will all sit with her badly for some time to come. She won’t engage in conversation and an hour or so passes with only the occasional touching of their feet, one of them seeking reassurance and the other giving it with light taps.

It is early when Brienne moves, undressing and laying herself on their bed, and Jaime follows her. She cries a little, but then she finds some ease and they do nothing but look at one another, hands touching between them. She is uncommonly hard for him to read as they lie there, more so as the sky eventually darkens.  Yet throughout Jaime finds he needs nothing but her wide blue gaze to keep him still and quiet, as if anchored into place. Willingly. So willingly.

Sleep comes to her more slowly than it should, but when it does, the soft melancholy of daylight turns into something hard and vicious inside. The piss poor rest of those nights of old comes back to her, though whether it is fights of years past roiling through her head, or a newer one entirely, is lost to him. It doesn’t matter. It never would. Even when his ribs ache, for she grasps at him so tightly, all he can think is that he would have this stop for her.

In the darkest hours, a thought occurs.

/-/-/-/-/

Brienne wakes slowly, aching and tired. At first, her mind is empty, the lassitude of sleep quelling thought, but she blinks and the tight, sandy sensation behind her eyelids brings the day before rushing back to her.

_Thousands._

She groans, low and long in the bright morning light, turning her face fully back into her pillow and rolling onto her stomach.

_No._

She holds onto the words Jaime had spoken, letting them soothe her. She reaches out blindly to her right, feeling for him, but the blankets are cool to the touch.

_He isn't here._

It hurts a little that he would leave her alone at this time, but Brienne is not his keeper. On Tarth, at least, Jaime must be free to do as he chooses. She would not have it otherwise. Perhaps he is gone to the Godswood, as he so likes to nowadays.

She lifts her head to look at the place in which she thought to find him.

He is not there, no. But something else is.

She shifts around until she is sitting up, bare to her waist, leaning against the headboard, and picks up the small piece of parchment from the pillow next to her, where normally Jaime's head would lie. Her heart is thudding as she unfolds it and soaks in his words.

 _My Nearly Wife,_ it begins. Brienne cries out at that, she knows she does, though she doesn't sound like herself. Horror at a man's final words, a curse spat out in hatred, at the memory of his blood warming her fingers carried through her sleep, is transformed into sheer joy, because she knows what this _is_. What it will be to her. Her weakened hand holds the note like an injured bird in her lap and the other rises to cover her mouth, even as noises surely too womanly to emerge from one such as she change into far more familiar soft laughter as she reads on.

 _Now you can see why I haven't replied to you before._ "Oh, Jaime," she mutters, taking in the untidy scrawl left behind by his lone hand.

_I am yours._

_Brienne, I love you._

They are small words, and they are not many, but Brienne is openly weeping by the time she is finished looking at them.

She has never thought to have anything likethis. Not since she was a child, her head full of the stories that would be harshly stripped from her as she grew large and ugly, has Brienne dared to dream that anyone would write words of love to her. For her.

Being so moved by this is foolish, she knows. That Jaime loves her, that he has for a very long time, is not in doubt. Yet still it is that she can only stare at this most precious gift, as if the ink itself knows her heart, and let her tears fall. Sharp sobs wrack her frame while decades of pain, old and new, loosen their grip and she lets them go, ending in short, quiet gasps as a moment of peace finds her.

"I had no wish to make you weep," Jaime says softly in his doorway. Brienne hadn't realized he'd returned and looks at him in shock. For some reason she can't define, she feels utterly naked before him, though only her chest is bare, and she begins to pull up the blanket to cover herself. Jaime looks at her curiously and she lets the wool drop away again. For in truth she doesn't ever want to hide from him. She can't say anything, for though her mouth moves, her throat feels thick, so she smiles weakly at him and mouths a silent 'thank you'.

"I only thought to bring you some food. You didn't eat for most of yesterday." He walks around the bed to stand at her side, leaning over her to place the small tray he is carrying in the middle of the bed. Then he sits on the edge of it, facing her and runs his fingers over her hair. "And I know you, Brienne of Tarth," he says, with much warmth. "Given half a chance, you wouldn't bother today, either."

She can only nod and lean into him, resting her head on his shoulder. They say nothing and Jaime continues to stroke her hair until, inevitably, a fingernail catches in a tangle. She huffs against his collarbone and she can feel the soft rumble of his laughter in him at the edge of her damaged cheek. Brienne reaches out for his waist with her right hand, which touches the little leather pouch that carries her own words for him. She whispers, "I will have to get..."

"Look at the tray, wench," Jaime interrupts fondly and she does. Next to a wooden platter, laden with nearly enough bread, ham, and cheese for two, is a piece of leather. "Though I think we should get Lolla to make them watertight," he adds wryly. "I've seen your needlework."

Brienne smiles and lets her fingers wander up to a patch of his loose undershirt that covers a place where she had stitched him very ill in the Long Night. Jaime rests his hand on the front of her shoulder, his thumb brushing back and forth over the pale, deep mark at the top of her breast where he had tried to do the same yet earlier, with even less success.

She kisses him and he holds her.

/-/-/-/-/

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be called 'The Evenstar's Chambers'. I will put a note here when I have a posting date. Thank you kindly for your time.


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